The Challenger
by everlostneverfound
Summary: Once upon a time, I thought to myself… what would it be like, to be trapped inside the game of mine craft with thousands of other people? This is how the insanity that follows was born… you want more info? read the story then.
1. Chapter 1

Forge, slumped into his computer chair, tired from the lengthy last day of school, sitting through the valedictorians that were two classes his senior talk on and on about how thankful they were for this honor, when most people just wanted to go home.

But now, school was finally over, and forge can sit in his chair in his room for the next too weeks, playing mine raft, why? Why not... he put on his head phones to drown out the noise of his family, three brothers and a sister, his parents were out of town and with his sisters help he was supposed to watch them, not that they needed watching they could cook better than most three star chefs.

He was about to start up a new world, since one of his brothers broke my last one by setting his spawn bed under hovering lava using signs and he could never get out of the lava before dying, when an update notice appeared on the new 1.6 launcher, which was weird, the last one was just a few days ago.

He shrugged and hit the entire 'yes's' and 'I agrees' necessary for the update, and just as it finished, the screen went black. He was confused for a moment, but then yelled down stairs when nothing happened "Did the power go out or something? My computer stopped working." He quickly took his head set off while saying this, trying to hear whoever started to yell back.

"If the powers out," came a reply from Sandra, his sister "Then the TV must not be working very well right now." Dripping with sarcasm and not in the least bit willing to help… that's her alright.

For a moment, Forge seriously considered having a shouting match with her through the house, but the neighbors would probably file a noise complaint for the third time this month.

He made a small groan and put his headphones back on, turning to the computer screen to push he power button to turn it back on, if that didn't work he would-

The screen wasn't black any more; it was a mine craft game already opened up. Creepy…. But Forge loved horror games, so he couldn't stop him self from taking a look around the world that forced itself into existence on his computer.

He mumbled to him self "This is a terrible idea… probably the worst idea I've ever had." But, he put his hands on the keyboard and mouse any ways, and looked around to see where this creepy pasta put him.

It only took a second for him to know he was on the extreme hills biome, and at the top of a very large mountain at that. "What do you think, human?" a voice was coming from the game, Forge expected weird, but this was a bit more than unexpected. He or rather, his avatar whirled around to face… the back of another player, it was using the standard skin, or from this angle it looked like it was at least. "Do you enjoy this world, this, Minecraft as you so call it?" Forge cringed at what he knew, or at least, thought was coming, and thought about running, or just leaving the game, but some part of him was curious about what would happen next, after all its not everyday… Herobrine talks to you.

He typed in the chat "I didn't think you were real, and yes, I think this is a fun game."

"I commend you for figuring out who I am so quickly, and this, 'game' as you call it, is a cheap rendition of another world." He turned around and faced me, staring with pitch white eyes. "This world is a weakened version of the true one, my brother Notch's side of the coin." He started walking closer his appearance seemed to change, Forge couldn't quite put his finger on it, but with each step closer he looked different.

Forge quickly typed in "So you're saying there is an endless world, fill of blocky terrain and similarly blocky mobs ruling it?" After typing that in, he quickly backed his avatar up to the edge of the mountain, as he got farther away Herobrine features changed back to normal as he got farther away, but soon with no more room to back up, it started changing again as Herobrine walked ever closer.

He smiled a vicious and cold smile. "I see the barrier between the two worlds Notch built up are able to be broken," Herobrine was less than ten blocks away now, and Forge now knew just in what way he was changing. "Using Notch's own world altering 'updates' as he calls them, against himself,". No doubt about it now, he was five blocks away, and there was no mistaking it at this point. "He will probably notice what I did soon, and block me out." Herobrine was filling the whole screen, but not in the classic blocky way all mine crafters knew. "Now, Forge, as you call yourself here, you will die." He looked real, 100% real, HD graphics and real, human features.

His hand, a five fingered hand, not in the least blocky, shot up, and grabbed something just below the screen... his avatar's throat.

Forge laughed into the computer screen, at the bane of all people who play mine craft, there was nothing he could to- he felt a slight pressure on his own neck. Forge shot his hands up to his neck as the pressure increased, but felt nothing there. Oddly enough, he saw two Minecraft block style hands shoot up in front of the screen for a second. Those hands were starting to look less blocky now… with each second the pressure on his neck grew, and the hands became more, human looking. Shit.

Forge, trying his best not to panic, started smashing the mouse's left click button, trying to make his avatar punch him away. The Steve, with its half human half blocky hand, shot out to punch him, but it was stopped mid air by Herobrine's other hand.

"A fighter huh? Not one to give up easily? Good, I like a challenge" As he said that, Forge decided it might be time to panic if this last ditch effort didn't work. He used his left hand to hit the Esc key, and then tried to use his right hand to move the mouse to click on the save and exit button. He couldn't move his right hand; he felt the grip of Herobrine on it, crushing it, just like his wind pipe.

Trying to use his free hand, he shot it across the keyboard to use the mouse. Before it even left the Esc button, the menu was gone, along with the health indicators and hunger bar. But, desperate as he was, he only made his hand move towards the mouse even faster, but, in stead of hitting the mouse, he hit Herobrine in the side… hard.

A slight grunt of surprise, but not pain, came from Herobrine. He looked shocked for a moment, but then his grin grew even wider than before. "Oh yes, you will be a very strong one in the other world indeed, maybe strong as notch himself." He turned and held me over the edge as I punched him again, this time in the head. He wasn't surprised that time. "You have good instincts that will be your greatest tool, let's just see if you have what it takes to beat me, Isaac." How the hell did he know my real name? AND WHY CAN I FEEL MY SELF PUNCHING HEROBRINE?

Herobrine let go of my throat, and grabbed my free arm, swinging me over his back, and throwing me straight down the mountain… then, I hit the ground. As the world went black, and the dark tunnel with light at the end closed, He heard "Come find me human, kill me by any means necessary, and maybe then you will get out…"


	2. Chapter 2: First challenge

HEY!, sorry for the cursing ahead, but hey, wouldnt you if you were trapped in a wierd place with zombies and skeletons? in fact you would probqbly go, INSANE, and thank you for the OC's people i apreaciate it, please review i wont post another chapter without at least one or two reviews YAY its a long chapter, no wonder he spent so much time writing it.

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Forge felt the familiar feel of a bed beneath him. He didn't open his eyes and decided to sit there for just a few more minutes. That was probably the most realistic nightmare ever had.

In fact, he still had bruises from it. That can't be right, can it? "he slowly peeked open his eyes, praying that he would see his familiar white wall paper. The stupid blank gray his sister complained was boring.

Wall paper was what he wanted to see, but he didn't even get too see a wall. He shot up and stared with an open mouth at what he saw, an empty, vast, and very real looking dessert, the only thing was, the few sand dues he could see in the distance, looked a bit blocky. Maybe, just maybe it wasn't a nightmare after all.

This is bad, sure, he played the game, but that was with a computer, and he never survived more than eight Minecraft days on hardcore, so ya, he's kind of screwed. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, it was one of the classic red ones from the game. He looked up and realized, the sun was just now rising, was he out here the whole time? With mobs passing him and ignoring him, or with no mobs at all there, or did he just get here? Maybe that's not important, after all, because when he finally set his feet on the ground, he felt sand, not the bottom of hs shoes "…" He looked down and, yes indeed, he wasn't wearing shoes "Mother fucker couldn't he have at least gave me some sandals at least?"

"I must be fucking crazy." He stood up and quickly took a few steps towards the rising sun, but then turned back to the bed. Sure, why not? He walked over to it and punched it a few times, and watched as it shrank, and started hovering just above the ground. "That's dumb, but at least I know some things are the same from the game to here." He walked over to it, and when it didn't magically zoom to him, he touched it. Nothing happened. Well, apparently he doesn't have the magical inventory all mine crafters take for granted, but couldn't live without.

He glared at the bed, and having nowhere else to put it, stuffed it into his pocket and started walking; at least it didn't weigh anything. After a while, he got the first of the sand dunes. Holy shit. Just on of those blocks was three feet high, or maybe a meter for you Europeans, well that sort of explains why two blocks are too high for your carachter to jump, but in the real one maybe I could climb two blocks easier. He stared up the mountain of sand, groaned, and started climbing it. Hopefully he would be able to see another biome; the dessert was always his least favorite, no useful plants other than cactuses and no trees. But besides that, he was a real person now, he would probably need water. Too bad there wasn't another biome in sight, just sand, more cactuses, a pyramid, another cactus, wait… pyramid? Hopefully it hasn't been explored, maybe theres some stale brea and a pick axe in there, not to mention the chest with TNT under it. So maybe he would try that, but no telling how long it will take to get to it, it could take all day, or all week.

It was still pretty early, and the dessert was oddly cold, but that was just from the nighttime temperatures, the dessert is supposed to drop to freezing at night sometimes, but that is not going to be the same for day time.

After a minute more of walking, with the sun finally all the way past the largest, and most distant sand dune past the pyramid still several hundred, or hundred thousand, blocks ahead of him. He looked down and inspected the blocks below him. The sand itself looked completely real, so Forge decided to grab a handful, and it actually worked. "Well, that's new." He looked back down at the sand block, and there wasn't any evidence of the handful of sand he picked up being missing from the ground, but the foot prints he left behind were clearly visible. He poured the sand onto another sand block, but instead of a pile it just sank into the block and disappeared. "This place has the weirdest physics ever."

He shook his head at the clearly broken physics, maybe notch, or whoever made it was drunk when he and or she made the 'real' Minecraft. But sitting here pondering useless information wasn't going to get him any closer to potential safety, "Time to start booking it." with that, he started running, yes running, in the dessert. For a computer nerd he was actually sort of athletic, not like some of the sport jockeys, but he packed a punch and could run a mile or so without having to collapse form exhaustion, which is more than what the other 66% percent of America can say.

After that, time really flew by, now it was midmorning, sun burning his eye sockets out, and started to heat up the sand underneath his feet, definitely going to be a problem later. For now though, he kept moving slightly to avoid a cactus every few minutes, and running towards the pyramid with his head down, avoiding the light of the rising sun.

He kept going until he came to a ravine. Not a very deep one, it wouldn't hurt him if he fell down, but he definitely would have trouble getting out. Forge looked down both ends of the ravine, but it seemed to go on for a while both ways, and he wouldn't make it to the pyramid by nightfall.

"Only one option left I guess," He backed up a block or two farther, and went at a full sprint at the ravine, and jumped, but by some stroke of luck, in stead of landing face first on the sand stone at the bottom an feeling like a moron, he landed on the other side, at the very edge of the closest block of sand. "Wow that was clo-".Of course his luck ran out when said sand block had nothing beneath it, and like regular sand, for some weird reason, it was no longer solid and fell beneath him, bringing him to the ravine floor.

Now feeling like a moron for not thinking it though and picking a better spot to jump, He sat up, and started punching the sand, needing to get at least three so he could climb the rest of the way. After breaking a block, he started on the next one, and just finished when he heard a growl behind him. He turned around to see a zombie sticking its head out of a small cave opening, and since the ravine didn't have much light in it… the zombie was free to- It jumped up and rushed at him like a mad man. It had dead, corrupted skin with no obvious deformities, like most zombies, and had black dead eyes, that reminded him of a song lyric but he couldn't remember the name. All of that he thought before the zombie got even a block closer to him.

Forge pulled his fist back and readied the other in a defensive block, then smashed the zombies face as it came at him, it fell backwards with a bloody nose and looked up at him with murder in his eyes. Forge grabbed the other sand block in his hand and rushed away, hoping there would e a spot short enough to jump up with using the two sand blocks he managed to get.

With a roar of anger from the zombie, he heard several answering zombie growls from the cave it came from. That's right, the new update said the zombies call for help like zombie pig men, I guess that's the same here. He looked back for a second, and saw one with full gold armor and an iron sword. They moved like regular people would, well sort of, some of them were slower and less nimble, but still they didn't move like the blocky Minecraft zombies, in stead they ran fast and low, going from side to side, in an apparently automatic response just in case I had a bow. But there definitely wasn't much intelligence behind most of their eyes. But the gold armored one, still looked somewhat human, and had distinguishing features from the rest, first off, his eyes were blue, and not the dead black, and his skin still retained some original uncorrupted color on his face.

I stopped looking and focused on running faster, and looking for a low spot to jump up using the sand, the bed too if I start getting to tired before. But, he wa already tired from running, and the heat, the heat from the sun that wasn't even shining on him right now, was pretty intense, but obviously the zombies felt it, moans or what sounded like distress, and I thought I heard actual words along the lines of "hot" but maybe that was my imagination.

Your bed or your life forge, he thought to himself as he ran. Of course he chose the stupider choice, and yanking his bed out of his pocket, slammed it against the sand, jumped on it, and repeated the process with the sand he collected. He turned around too see just how close to death he was, one, obviously being more athletic than the others, jumped on my sand pile, to the opposite wall, which was two blocs away, and back again, with his hands firmly latched on the edge of the block where I was standing on. As he pulled up he was greeted with a good tanning as the sun light him on fire.

Forge stopped and took a breath, "Well," he said, backing up from the ravine "That will make things easier." I started walking away from the ravine, to tired to run any more. After a while I looked back, too see something that nearly made me have to go find some brown pants. The full armored one was standing in the sun, thanks to his coverings, he was safe. He nodded to me and said, in a guttural deep voice that made him sound like he was gargling gravel "You can run, but we will just follow you" He then gestured to the foot steps at his feet. "If your going to run, run fast, I may be their leader, but I can't stop them from coming after you, I have'nt lost all my humanity yet, so ill give you a fighting chance by not killing you here, but, if I catch you out at night I wont hold back."

I stopped running for just a second stunned that he could talk "Well, um, thanks I guess." He just nodded, and gestured with his sword. So I started running. There was a dark, cloaked figure in the distance, but I blinked and it was gone, with a particle trail suspiciously similar to an ender man's teleport but no, that couldn't be right, ender men didn't come out during the day, maybe it was another person with an ender pearl.

In any case, thought Forge I should hurry to the temple, it may be my only chance to hold out until, what I hope the person is coming back with help, arrives.

Cynthia, a new face in this adventure stood on a distant sand dune and watched as the human ran from the ravine, towards what he thought would be safety, the dessert temple. Really, that place would probably be more dangerous than the zombies on his trail. She looked again with a start as she saw the golden armored one emerge, so it was that group, she thought. I've got to tell seth. With a poof of ender agic she quickly went to Houser's house.

A human, wielding duel blades of diamond, apparently the only diamond he could find since he didn't have armor, or a pick axe of diamond, not that he would have worn armor any ways, not in the dessert, that armor turned you into a human roast beef when the sun went up high. He turned around, and saw his more than dear friend, Cynthia wearing her hood, and panting from the exhaustion of so many teleports.

"Seth, there's a problem, that golden armored zombie guy, hes on the move agin, hes chasing down another newbie from the deep dessert." They actually lived in the dessert, mostly because it didn't rain there, and there wasn't much water for synthia to fall into. She quickly took of her protective robe, and sat down, now only wearing her hoodie, a short black skirt, and a pair of boots.

"And you want me to go down there right?" Seth said, reluctant to leave and travel at night.

"Come on, itl be easy, just take a horse and swing your swords around like a maniac, they'll run pretty fast, after all some of them still have their human sides in them." She said with her usually perky attitude.

Damn, though Seth, and I thought I could have a relaxing day for once. "Allright," he said with a sigh, "As long as I don't do something stupid like dying I should be fine." He turned to leave, but then he said "Where did you say he was again?"

She smiled and said "I didn't actually, but hes going to one of the temples, since you don't know where it is, ill lead you there while you take a horse."

"Wow, must really be a new one to go into there, allright, but it would be easier if you could just teleport me." He said as they went out the door to the horse pen, it had a patch of grass blocks he moved from the nearby plain biome to keep the horse fed and happy.

"You know im not strong enough for that yet," she said while doing a little stretch "I've only died once since ive become a human, so my powers aren't all there yet."

He nodded, and got on his horse he named Epona, after a video game horse from a game he played before he got dragged into this ridicules place. "Ya, but don't go dying okay? You die too many times and you might lose your humanity, that's what you said any waay right? Humans that die become mobs, and then those mobs, if they die a lot lose their humanity."

She made an unintelligible noise and started teleporting, with Seth close behind and ready to save the newbie's ass.

Beatrice looked on at the strange pair form atop a tree in the jungle, she was going to stay up there for the night, but whatever they were doing, going out at sun down, must be more interesting than this. Her eyes, right now a sky blue color, looked on as the one on the horse seemed to be following an ender person, one that hasn't been corrupted yet.

She smiled, hey color changing slightly, to a greenish color, but not quite a bright mint green. "This might be kind of fun." She quickly got down from the tree, and at a sprint, followed the pair and their foot prints as they raced towards, something.

"Issac, what the hell where are you?" Yelled Sandra, she quickly came up the stairs, and found the weirdest thing on his computer. IT looked like the base code for a game, or some sort of simulation. She quickly checked the code of the one it was centered around, that one was going at a rather fast speed towards some sort of pyramid, and had a red color to it, with a bunch of dark green ones behind it, most had the simple label of corrupted soul, type: zombie, but one had a label that said, partial corruption, armed zombie, while forge was with a label over his head that said Challenger: Forge, ID: Isaac.

That was weird, but what was weirder, Isaac has been gone for two days, and this definitely wasn't there before… and didn't he complain that his computer was acting weird earlier? Sandra shrugged, and decided to work some hacker magic on this program for some clues, but first looked around for other entities, there was another pair heading towards it, and one behind that pair. The pair was a weird one, one kept bouncing around, like it was some sort of glitch, and it was a light green tat said :minimal corption, type: ender, Cynthia, the other was riding another entity, and had a label of its own, bt with a blue color to it. She didn't read most of the label, just that it said Non participant, and then went on with other information.

It was the one following the pair was read like Forge, and when she clicked on it, a whole list of stats appeared, she didn't bother to read them, only that it said she was a Challenger, and it had a picture of a running girl with reddish brown hair. She quickly exited out of that and clicked on other entities, mostly the corrupted ones to fid a difference, finally, she came to forge and clicked on it. She put her and over her mouth and backed away form the screen, trying not to scream. IT was a picture of Isaac, running over the dessert, and the things chasing him, they were going to corrupt him, like a virus if they caught him.

No, she was a hacker, she could do something, if that was really Isaac in there, she could help him get out, or at least live another day… all she has to do is pull a few digital strings, and make sure this computer doesn't get shut off. "Sandra, did you find any thing on his computer?"

"No mom, just some weird program he must have been working on." She quickly put on Isaac's custom head set, and started working on how exactly she was going to change the turn of events in that weird world he was in.

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thats right, all of you are in this chapter so far, and oh whats that? Sandra the sister actually does something important n the story? *a collective gasp is heard from the crowd* yes yes i know shocking aint it? well again, review, i can see you people that read the story and dont review, i dotn apreaciate it when you dont review.

an OC bio sheat for OC submissions

NAME:

AGE:

species:

gender:

apearence:

Clothes(please not the standard minecraft clothing)

Telents, skills, useful or usless things i should know

weapon:(please submit unique weapons such as lances, hammers, or if that perosn prefers a pick axe over a sword)

What mob he she likes best, ( not neccesary if he or she is a mob) this one is atually VERY important later so please include this

alignment:Good, evil, herobrine, me, or some other group that I have yet to metnion, in fact you could create the leader of a group, like a king, or a mob boss, like a skeleton with a sythe

I'd apreciate it if you do this, I'd like an actual bio sheet like this instead of the minamal things please


	3. Chapter 3:Will to live

Hello agian people, thank you for reading my story, i dont own any thing, or i wouldnt be writing about it, soon enough, after another chapter this fight will be over and we get to go to the plot, I'm still not sure what that is but I am oging to find out

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Forge sprinted over the now scalding dessert sand, each step burning his feet, but the sun was only going lower now, and the undead mob he got away from with only the clothes on his back, would be after his skin next. The pyramid was closer now, but, if he wasn't quick enough the help that might never get here will come too late.

"Well ain't I the optimistic one…" He muttered to himself after that dark thought. But with burnt feet from the sand, torn clothing from running into a cactus after panicking from seeing how ate it was already, and a few needles stuck in him from it, he was pissed and wanting revenge, there would almost definitely be something good in that pyramid.

It was a lot bigger than he thought it would be, probably at least 150 blocks tall, with translated to more than four hundred and fifty feet, probably, his math might be a little off, but it was close, probably. That left a lot of room to hide, and a lot of loot to get, but there was almost a guarantee of traps and mobs to go through, but if he was going to live, he has to fight with everything he has, from now unto death.

The sun was setting, and still no sign of any help from that figure cloaked in black. With blisters forming from the burning sand, the sun finally set, and the roars of the dead could be heard behind him, and to his left, and his right. "Shit shit shit shit shit shiiitt!" He ran even faster, looking for an entrance to the pyramid, he circled around it after he finally got to it, in the darkness he could hear the zombies getting closer, and he swore he could hear a skeletons bones clanking against each other.

"Come on there ahs to be a way in, there always is." Finally, on the opposite side he found a small tunnel, like one you would make while mining, probably not an original entrance, maybe form an adventurer trying to find a way in and decided for a more direct approach. Hopefully, he left some stuff behind that he couldn't carry, like a loaf of bread, or a shovel that Forge could use as a weapon.

He quickly went though and found an empty room, with long dead mummies scattered in the floor, one had an arrow in its skull, another a stone pick was lodged in it, and one had its head clean off. There wasn't any blood; these things were probably mostly dust before they got killed any way. Forge walked over to the stone pick, and pulled it out, when he did, the mummy turned to dust. "That isn't creepy… not at all."

The zombies roars grew even louder, it sounded like even more of them were there now, going to their target, me. Moving a little faster, he left the room, with the lightly used pick axe in hand. He turned left and found a horrible sight, a human, pinned against the wall with arrows. He died a while ago from the looks of him, half of him decayed away. There must have been a friend with him or something, because he didn't have any stuff with him other than a half eaten apple, and it was covered in dried blood.

Forge looked suspiciously down the hall way, and sure enough there were dispensers at the end, four of them, all he has to do is make sure he doesn't trigger them. He slowly walked forward, staying low and checking the ground for pressure plates and trip wires, block by block. If he made a mistake here, running so far and hard would be for nothing.

Eventually, he saw a single pressure plate on the floor. Pulling out his pick, he broke the block that was under it, and saw a red stone trail leading to the dispensers. Hearing the zombies behind him again, he quickly replaced the block, and put the pressure plate back where it belonged. Moving even quicker, he almost didn't notice the trip wire right in front of his eyes. He started to duck under it, but there was on there too.

Grumbling, he used his pick axe to tunnel under the wires, and quickly put back all the sand stone blocks one at a time. At least now the zombies will have trouble following him. But it definitely wouldn't stop them all.

He ran over and checked how many arrows were in each one. It came to a total of six, with three in top left, two in top right, and one in bottom right. He groaned after shutting the last dispenser "I'm so screwed, all the traps are broken, triggered, or out of ammo.

As he was about to turn the corner, an arrow flew right in front of his eyes. Panicking, he threw his pick axe at the source of the arrows, hearing a crack, like broken bones, and that sound you hear when you drop wind chimes on the floor. Forge ran to the sound, and found a skeleton with a pick axe in its head. "That, was probably the luckiest throw in my whole life, if I keep this up I won't have any more luck left by tomorrow." It looked like an actual human skeleton, but then again, most things that moved looked more real here, even the blocks looked real, and behaved like they should individually, other than feeling the pull of gravity anyways. As he got closer to it, a soft glow, came form it and surrounded him, but only for a moment before disappearing. Forge thought about what it was for a moment, and there were a lot of possibilities, but he could save that for later.

He picked his trusty, half broken pick axe, and started walking towards, whatever might get him something useful. He heard a distant click, the one from a trip wire being touched, followed by a volley of arrows, and a few, very pissed off sounding zombies.

Now Forge was running, the walls a blur, and hoping there weren't more traps. He jumped over a pit that looked like it was made with an explosion, it had another hopeful adventurer in it, with several dead again zombies as well. That oen didn't have any stuff either; it must have been a whole team of people trying to get in the pyramid.

It was starting to get a lot less likely that there was any good stuff left, after all with the dad adventurers here, with no stuff, there must have been a lot of people, a lot of people can hold a lot of stuff.

After running another thirty seconds or so, practically dying of exhaustion already from running in the dessert heat, he found stairs, and went up them as fast as he could. It was a spiral stair case, in the game, he might have stopped to check and loot rooms, but right now, his life was on the line and he kept going up.

He didn't have a plan, and he was running out of time, running out of space to run, and running out of strength. The only thing he had left was the will to live, a slightly broken pick axe, and four years of training in various jujitsu's.

He got to the top of the stairs, to reach a dead end, a room with a tomb at the corner and a chest at its feet. He picked up, yes picked up the chest and slammed it into the ground, instead of shattering it shrunk, and three other shrunken items appeared, an apple, one gold ingot, and a stick. "Why does the world hate me?" if he wasn't running from an army of the dead, Forge would have loved to find these here, too bad he wont live to find these useful.

The zombies form before were very loud now, and he could hear footsteps as they got closer. Turning to the closest wall, he raised his pick and started smashing through it, expecting another round of sprinting around traps and dodging arrows form any more skeletons. But as he broke through the wall, fresh air greeted him. He quickly stepped outside, to see at least ten zombies just on the side he was facing.

Hearing a zombie running up behind him, he quickly stepped to the side, and raised his arm with out the pick axe and slammed his fist against te back of its head as it came out, leaving it to fall all the way down the pyramid. Apparently the zombies down there heard that and looked up "I," he said quietly to himself "Am totally, and completely, fucked." The zombies below roared, and the ones behind him screeched and ran faster up the spiral steps. Seeing no other option, he turned around, and climbed up the rest of the pyramid, to find a flat, 5 by 5 surface on the top, obviously either the Egyptians of Minecraftia, were either too lazy to put a point on it, or the author wanted a flat surface for him to make a stand on.

Breaking the fourth wall aside, Forge readied his pick axe, and circled around the pyramid, seeing at least twenty zombies outside the pyramid in total, and that was just he group climbing up, there was still the golden armored zombie and his group, slowly walking towards the pyramid, knowing they have all the time in the world right now to get to me, after wards they will have a nice new home in the pyramid. Forge looked desperately at the sand dune where he thought he saw the teleporting human, but no, no black figure there to help me.

Forge sadly watched the army go up the pyramid, but most of them looked a lot more tired than forge, apparently being dead didn't make you immune to the effects of sprinting at full pelt for half an hour. The real problem, Forge decided, would definitely be the armored zombie and his group, taking their time in getting to me in the cool of the night, while I ran in the heat of the day.

Wanting to make sure his pick axe wouldn't break before the real problem arrived; he dropped it, and watched it shrink before picking it up and putting it in his pocket, the same pocket a nice comfy bed used to be… what he wouldn't give for a bed right now.

The first zombie finally made it up, panting and exhausted form the chase, thinking it won, it ran towards me with an evil grin, ready to rip my thought out. It was met with a broken arm, and a trip back down the pyramid.

Even if these guys don't get me, he thought staring at the pack of rotting corpses moving up the blocks slowly but surely, There's no way ill defeat an armored, rested opponent with a golden sword.

But, unto death he would fight. And bring whoever killed him, down with him.

Seth spurred his horse to go faster "Come on, we are almost there, Cynthia called from the top of the sand dune. "Its just up here." Seth felt the weight of his swords on his back, he didn't bother to make them items, he could get them ready faster if they were already in battle mode, and had his horse speed up the incline, hoping they weren't too late.

As he got to the top of the sand dune, he saw something amazing. "Holy crap, that guy can actually fight!" There were now a collection of zombies moaning-in pain-at the base of the pyramid, although he was clearly drained, and would probably die sooner of exhaustion than the zombies around him, they weren't in much better shape than him, even with broken arms and legs, busted noses pouring greenish blood, some kept going up, ready to fight him again, while the apparently smarter ones with far less extensive injuries sat in guard positions around the tower, to make sure he didn't escape… they were waiting.

"Cynthia, go and help him out with those persistent little pricks, I think I have to go and make sure reinforcements don't get here."

She looked at me, confused and worried. "But who would-" realization flashed in her purple eyes, and she shook her head, making her blond hair go back and forth. "Im not letting you fight him alone, even if it was just you and him, you wouldn't stand a chance with out me to help, and even than, we would probably both die."

Seth smiled and said "Oh ye of little faith, where is your good attitude? I can handle this, and besides, if one of us doesn't help him" he said, gesturing to Forge, who was currently slamming a zombie's face against his knee, with two more coming up behind him, he shoved the first one back off the pyramid, and started on the other two, getting in a furious fist fight, that forge was starting to lose "Even with his skills, he will become one of them, and probably kill a lot of people, you and me included, he doesn't exactly seem stable, so he might go straight from human to corrupted if he dies." He looked on and his grin grew wider. "Besides, this is the most exciting thing to happen in weeks, I can handle this guy, just worry about that kid up there."

He rode off, to confront the dead king, while Cynthia worriedly looked after him, but only for a second. "Okay Seth, I trust you." She looked to the top of the pyramid, and focused her ender powers once again.

Seth rode around the other side of the pyramid, past perplexed zombies, wondering what the man of the dessert was doing so far from his home at night. But none of them chased him or got up, instead making sure he was a safe distance away before turning bak around and watching the fight, that now also included Cynthia, for a few minutes the two fought back to back, but whatever limit the guy had on the top of the pyramid, was finally reached, he keeled over, and puked on the ground, and passed out. Cynthia, after seeing this started pacing around all sides of the pyramid, daring any one to come up and challenge her, those that were got teleport punches to the back of the head.

Seth turned and focused on the twenty or so undead soldiers, all with make shift weapons, like stone shovels, an iron pick, a few more stone picks, one axe, and at the head of the crowd, the dead king, who, after his kingdom fell, to a combination of rival kingdoms and tribes, became a king of the dead.

"Hail to the road" Seth roared over the wind that started picking up. "The king of the dead marches again." Seth pulled out one of his two blades, keeping the other hand on his horse's reins.

The dead king smiled and said "My friend Houser, I thought you'd have died on one of your 'adventures' by now, keep it up and I may have to clean my nice shining blade of your blood, that would sadden me greatly to kill someone who was a friend while I was turning, but you will not stop me from slaying the Challenger."

Seth's jaw dropped, he knew if the king marched it was something big, but a challenger? He regained his composure and said "I thought the dead king took orders from no man, which challenger asked you to kill this one before he could even stand?"

The dead king grinned again, and raised his blade in front oh him, holding it with both hands, the starting pose of a duel "You are right, I take orders form no man, but, the hero asked me to make im stronger through a deadly fight, if he died durig it he would never be strong enough to fight him." Seth gritted his teeth at the mention of the so called hero, the world here was split on wether he was a good or bad thing, on one hand, he kept a peace, to some extent, between the major factions of the mobs and humanity, but on the other, he terrorized both himself, going into the largest towns, and the largest dungeons, challenging the greatest warrior of the area to fight, if one did not appear, he simply fought them all until one showed itself. After destroying the brave, or not so brave warrior, he would leave, and find another village to terrorize, and another dungeon to flatten into dust.

"That, that thing, is no hero, that is why a new challenger must fight him, and one finally win to take his place, after all only a challenger can kill the lord of the kingdoms of men, and the hordes of the mobs."

"As much as I ould love to argue with you about this until the sun rises, we will settle this in a test of strength, if you win, my army will withdraw, and leave the challenger be for now, but lose, and I continue and only kill those that get in my way between him and me. Seth looked back, the fighting only intensified, and for some reason a group of them was running off to the sand dune.

"Fine, but if this is a battle of strength, your soldiers will not interfere, and I wont use potions to tip the balance."

The king of the dead raised his blade, his soldiers backed away, forming a semi circle behind the king. "Agreed." With that one word, he shot forward, and the duel began.

Beatrice watched as they went up the sand dune and talked, and thought how strange of a pair it was again, but only for a moment before running up after the one on the horse rode off again, and the ender person, no longer wearing a cloak, but a hoodie, short skirt, that in her opinion revealed a little too much, and boots.

She ran for another minute before she got to the sand dune, and quickly started cimblimg. She got to the top, to see evidence of a battle that must have been going on for at least an hour now, but the ender girl and horse rider, just got there. She looked to the top of the pyramid, and watched as a guy on the top, grabbed hold of a zombie, and beat the undead shit out of him, using just his hands. Most normal humans would be over whelmed by just one, and he was obviously exhausted, he looked like he had been running all day too, sweat plastered he hair to his skin, he looked like he was going to be sick.

Scratch that, he did get sick, well, I guess you have to hit the wall eventually, adrenaline and stupidity to keep going when you are already dead can't keep you going forever. Beatrice hoped her blue clothes would help hide her while she stood on the top of the sand dune, maybe with the back ground of the night behind her they wouldn't see her until after she killed too many of them for it to matter.

She readied her bow, and grabbed three arrows, apparently out of thin air, and readied them to fire. She picked out a group by the closest corner, spread out properly for a triple kill with the bow, and let them loose.

Two arrows it them in the head, but one just got hit in a usless bit of meanin the shoulder, nothing vital there. She imagined an announcer shouting double kill, in a weirdly deep voice in the distance.

She kept pulling arrows out of the air around her, and nothing them in her bow, and firing them off at the zombies now abandoning their posts around the pyramid to go after a new threat.

"Oops, she said as she shot a zombie in a rather sensitive place, "Reall sorry didn't mean to do that." She said as the zombie glared at her trough its pain tears. She quickly put it out of its misery, to find she was out of arrows already. "guess I need to count how many I use next time…" She pulled a rather large iron sword off her back, and held it, ready to strike as a group of five charged mindlessly at her.

Sandra stared in horror at the screen, she couldn't seem to find a crack, not even a little on, in its firewalls. If that was really her brother in there, even with those people helping, they wouldn't make it for another ten minutes. She glared at the screen, and started making some calls.

Wow this one is REALLY long, sorry but ill have to end it here because, well I have to sleep and stuff, plus theres the fact I don't lie to post overly long chapters, so, see you tomorrow, or next week, depending on what mood I'm in. you know I wrote all this in one day? Shocking right? A writer who actually updates frequently, sure the quality might be a little crappy, but that's my opinion, and a writer should never judge its own work, so, tips? Advice? Praise? Anything at all? I don't care just review you lazy bums I can see when you read it and don't review.

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R and R please, I apreaciate villan OC's if you have any, i have a potential villan but alignment is nuertal so it could way either way, any ways, an actual plot wil make it's self clear as mud in another chapter instead of clear as dirt, becuase mud is a little more see through.


	4. Chapter 4: goodbyes and hellos

Okay, originally this was longer, but with my slow computer deciding i had too many words it froze and i lsot all my progress on the story, since that happened two hours ago i got lasy and shortened it, but the other parts that i neglected to put in will be in the next chapter so you won't miss any thing important

Also, for the time being i will not be accepting more OC's unless there is a lot of description becuase any thing else that is submitted with out lotsa description where i have to fill in gaps, will be used as people that will die after beingmentioned for about 100 words

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WARNING: OC DEATH APROACHING

Forge, after smashing greenish blood on his jeans, turned to find a pair of zombies, so far he had only been dealing with them one at a time, and already he knew these things were insanely strong, if it wasn't for his skills in judo, and his own experience with actual street fights, they would have killed him along time ago. He couldn't just grab one and throw it back down, or the other would get him while he was distracted, and that would be the end.

He quickly let off a flurry of quick punches, and broke one's nose and giving the other an even blacker eye, but they returned with their own punches, and when one of them landed, it hurt, bad. He stumbled backwards, but went forwards again, breaking one of their arms, and hitting a sweet spot in the middle of the chest that knocked all the wind of it. The one with the broken arm swung its other arm, and knocked him into the chiseled sand stone.

Then, a sound like a teleport, and a flash of a girl wearing a skirt and boots, with solid purple eyes, nailed one of them in the face, with the force of the teleport, it staggered backwards, off the edge of the block. The second, ducked under the ender girl's first punch, and tried to tackle her, but only succeeded in scraping its arms up on the stone as she teleported farther away. Forge leaped up, and grabbed the back of its head, slamming it into the pyramid, then dragging and throwing him into another zombie that was climbing up. Through the rest of the fight, the only thought on his mind other than survival, and breaking that zombies leg was to not look at the ender girl, she might get mad like in the game.

With each successive fight after wards, he had less and less in him, but still fought with the same strength and didn't let up at all, despite his injuries, his hunger, his thirst, his blistered feet that hurt with each step, and most importantly, muscles that pained him to even be alive at the moment. Soon, the world started going black, and he felt bile rise up in his throat. No, not now, I have to... keep fighting… I have to get out. With that, he puked up what little food he had in his stomach, and fell over.

Seth narrowly avoided a horizontal swipe of the dead king's sword; He could actually feel the wind as it rushed by over his head. "You need to be faster than that." The zombie roared as he readied for another swing.

Seth jabbed with his right sword at his chest, and swung his left one at his head. The zombie side stepped, and the angle that the diamond blade hit the chest plate at, made it simply graze it, leaving a rent in the armor, but the zombie was still un harmed, and he blocked the wild swing, that if swung with both hands wouldn't have been stopped by a flick of the blade, that hit on the flat of the diamond blade, not damaging the gold on in the least, and leaving Seth wide open for an attack.

The dead king smiled. "Gotcha now." He grabbed Seth's right hand, squeezing it until he dropped the sword, and with a quick, efficient jab, drove the blade into his stomach. He felt fire and red spread out and traveled down from where the gold jutted out of his chest. He knew he was dead.

But he wasn't done yet. He still had one free arm, and that arm carried one of the deadliest blades on the planet. The dead king smiled, forgetting about that blade, until he was missing an arm. Actually, it was still there, holding the sword that was lodged in Seth's belly, but it was no longer a part of the king of the dead. Very quickly after the removal of his arm, there was a sword stuck in his chest, sliding though the gold like it was… butter… heh heh… budder. Now, the king of the dead was going to die yet again, probably the fifth or sixth time by the looks of how corrupted he was already.

Seth sat down, watching as his blood slowly leaked out of his stomach; the blood was a black color, meaning the liver was the thing that was cut. There was no chance of survival without potions, and Seth never really figured them out. Too bad. "Well." The king of the dead said. Staring with amusement at the sword, made of a material that would be worth millions on earth, "You have certainly improved."

Seth looked up with a rather blank expression and said "By the looks of you, this is your last time."

The king of the dead, no longer looked so amused, but nodded, and with his one arm, held it out to his old companion. "I think we should shake hands, for the deal, after all I made a promise that my army would withdraw should you beat me, and all you have to do is live a little longer."

Seth smiled, a little sadly, and shook his previously human friend's hand. "Sure, you were the first human I met here after all; it's too bad I am the one who is sending you into insanity." Both of them felt their life slipping away, and the zombies around them, confused and unsure of what to do, with their master dying, and his opponent they were told specifically not to eat, so they stood, confused and still, even the ones Cynthia, unaware her love was dying, and Beatrice, who was locked in heated conflict with those enemies that remained.

"Insanity isn't all that bad, you get used to it after a few years, and after living with it for a few decades or so you get bored and go back to being sane, like Herobrine." The king of the dead looked upon his subjects, subjects who, in life, would die for him, and they did, over, and over again. "I only wish that I had been the first to go, so they would have left and tried to survive on their own, maybe in a stronghold somewhere, or in one of the mob forts above ground, they might still be very sane then, instead of following me on my ridicules quests for adventure.

Seth knew that that was how most people felt, it was a little selfish actually, if you died knowing you saved your fiend, you died happy, your friend however, lived on thinking you dying was it's fault, and that if it didn't make that mistake, or didn't decide to explore that dark cave, you would still be alive. "Jack. Seth said, calling the dead king by name for the first time in many months. "What is it like to die?"

Jack smiled, and with the life leaving him ever faster, leaving greenish stains on the sand, he said "It sucks, the first time at least, you think of your friends, and you get all philosophical about how you could have done more with your life, and how, if you ever do see your friends again, it might be because you are tying to kill them." He looked up at Seth once more "Speaking of that, I'm sorry I had to do this, But It was an order from Herobrine himself to make him," He said, gesturing to the boy now passed out on the pyramid. "Stronger." He looked at Seth and asked "I know this is a personal question, but are you going to turn into a zombie since we killed you, or did you already pick another?"

"Seth grinned, blood starting to show on his lips and looked over to the top of the pyramid, where Cynthia looked around, still confused why the zombies stopped coming, and just stopped at the base of the pyramid. "I don't think I really need to say much there, I have an ender for a girl friend, and you think I wouldn't choose them?"

Jack smiled and said "No, I guess that was a stupid question." With each breath, words became harder. "I think you out lasted me, so being the winner, you gain my strength, not that it will matter any more, and my final word, for this night, and this night only, the zombies shall not attack any one in the dessert."

Seth nodded, and relaxed down against the sand, still warm from the heat of the day, and said "I just hope, that I don't die again, because your right, it sucks, and, I don't feel pain any more, that kind of worries me, I heard that there is no return unless you are actually in a hospital if you get to that point."

"Indeed not, came a breathy reply, well, my time is up as well." The dead king no longer had breath in his lugs, the sword had finally, while they were talking, sawed through the lining with each breath. He mouthed 'I'm sorry'. And then, he was gone. Upon his death, a green aura appeared, circling Seth, He felt a small surge of strength, but then it went away has his blood kept flowing.

The armies of the dead, abandon their posts around the towers, and went to what ever hole they came from, no longer interested in a meal with their leader gone once more. Seth starred at the stars, and thought of Cynthia, the last thing he saw, was a pair of worried, purple eyes, and he swore he could hear a distant voice. "Seth? Seth! Listen to me, your going to be fine, and your going to be-"

Beatrice looked on confused, she killed one with her long sword, but the rest of them stopped and turned away, towards the circle of zombies. "No way," she breathed quietly, her eyes turning a bright sky blue instead of the dark teal from earlier. "Did that little guy actually kill him?" she tossed her sword into the air around her, where it quickly shrunk, and flew around her before disappearing. Nothing moved for a long few minutes, but then, as one, the zombies lumbered off, most of the scattering, but the large group moved as one, sticking together like they were family, and going back east.

Her eyes turned a super bright mint green, and she jumped in the air and shouted "Flawless victory, not a single scratch." She said, bowing to an invisible crowd, her black hair swinging over into her face as she did. "Oh it was nothing really, no really I didn't even do much to help it was all," she said spinning around and pointing with over dramatic emphases to where the crowd of zombies used to be "That… guy…. oh shit…" Her eyes, slowly turning from the happy mint green, an indigo color, but only for a moment before turning away, and her eyes became a stormy gray as she turned, and walked to the boy up on the pyramid.

She heard a high pitched scream, and the distant sound of a teleport. After that, distant frantic words she couldn't hear. She couldn't help but thing, the clash of metal on metal sounded much better than this.

She refused to look at the grisly sight again, and didn't want to see the ender girl crying over her friend, or boy friend, she wasn't sure yet. She marched on up the steps, for each of them she almost had to jump to climb up, she heard the sound of that teleport again, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see the ender girl walking up the steps with her.

"Seth, he died to help him, he died because I asked him to help him…" She looked at Beatrice, standing several feet taller than her, nearly as tall as an ender man "Now, since you are here, you better help him, I know what you are." Perceptive one, wasn't she? "You better help him, if you don't, all that strength he has will go to what ever mob group hunts him down first, make him pick a path to walk, to focus his power, and maybe he can hold his own from here."

Beatrice looked away awkwardly and said quietly "I'm not a people person… why can't you do it, I am a traveler, and it's hard to keep two people alive with only the clothes on your back and a weapon."

"Well, I have to go to the end… and greet a new arrival to the ranks of the ender men." Beatrice knew for sure now, just how much of a relation ship those two had.

She sighed, and nodded, neither saying anything more. Cynthia nodded and with a few running steps, teleported one last time, but there was no particle trail this time, she went straight to the end.

Beatrice sighed, and continued walking up the steps, once se finally got up there, lying next to a puddle of his own vomit, was the challenger that ran through the dessert for the whole day, scaled a pyramid, and still had the energy to crush several zombies' arms and legs.

She quickly checked for a pulse, just to be safe. Sure enough he was alive. She pulled a few splash potions out of the air; regeneration and strength, with an instant heal in there too, and threw them down on him. His wounds quickly healed, and after that the regeneration restored his stamina. She quickly pulled a loaf of bread, and a bucket of water out of that invisible inventory she seemed to have, and put them next to him, along with a sign that simply said "Stay put and eat."  
Not that he would need much encouragement for that. All at once, the exhaustion of the night finally hit her, and not really wanting to move him, in case he tried to attack her.

Normally, she would sleep in a tree, or under ground, but since her new apparent traveling partner was K.O, she build a shelter out of wood planks, and slapped down a bed, and kept a torch lit inside. She quickly flopped down on the bed, and contentedly munched on some bread, waiting for the night to end.

A girl in all white, her face covered in a hood, the rest of her in skin tight white clothing, and a pair of boots. Sitting on her bed, she aimlessly rummaged through her leather bag, looking for just the sake of looking, needing something to pass the time as she waited in her newest home, a house in a village that recently ad a vacancy, after her master went and made absolutely sure one opened up one way or another.

He was a complete lunatic, sure, he kept her alive and gave her a job, plus training for being an assassin, but, he was still crazy.

A creek from the wooden door, and Tanya looked up. IT was a witch. She wore a purple shirt with flowing sleeves, plain jeans, black strappy heels, and had her black hair pulled back in a pony tail, but her bangs still framed her face, she also had green eyes, she looked to be a teenager, around Tanya's age.

"Tanya" she said pulling out a note "I have a message."

Not caring the strange witch already new her name, she asked, not really trusting the witch "Who sent it, and why?"

"A strange guy in a black cloak, e gave it to me saying it was for your master, he walked away muttering about the white eyed demon so I am pretty sure It was from Herobrine."

So it was a new target, it usually was, no one sent messages Nathaniel unless they wanted someone dead, or they died themselves. "You serve Herobrine?"

She smiled and said "I serve no man."

Tanya muttered under her breath "That isn't a man, it's a demon."

The witch laughed and said "He is only human, he has is faults like all the rest of us."

Knowing this conversation wasn't going to go any where, the assassin in training said "You know my name but I don't know yours, can you tell me?"

The witch considered the risks of telling an assassin her name, but decided no one wanted her dead that bad yet. "Its jade and I have a question for you."

"Shoot."

"Why haven't you become a corrupted mob yet? You died so many times already."

She cringed, most people laughed when they found out why, but she decided to show her any way, the assassin, slowly lifter the hood off her head, revealing her black hair, green, catlike eyes, and ears on top of her head. "Since I chose a peaceful one, I am not struggling with the urge to kill humans, I don't lose my sanity every time I die, because you only lose your sanity if you struggle against your chosen mob's nature, like, the iron golem outside, he has died three times protecting this village already, and he is no closer to becoming a full golem."

The witch instead of nodding only said "actually that explains a lot of things, why certain half mobs don't change, but I have one more question." She said, this time cracking a big grin. "Do you have a tail?"

Mortified, the assassin pulled her hood back up and covered her blush while nodding. The witch laughed and gave her a map along with the note "Here, you ever want to get away from that psycho, follow these directions and you'll get to my mob haven, It is for half mobs like you and me, not those soulless monsters that roam the wilderness, there's no way he will be able to get in."

She peeked out from under the hood and said "I would love nothing more than to get away from him, he has killed me more times than any thing else, but, I can't, Until he dies, at least once, I have to obey him, he… he tamed me."

She nodded and said "I see, well, I am definitely not fighting him, I may be the best, but he, he is something else and I wont survive a fight with him, if he ever dies, come to the gates and ask for Jade, they'll point you to my pretty quick."

With that, she backed p, and threw down a splash potion and disappeared, just in time for the master assassin himself to walk in. Tanya quickly grabbed the map, and hid it, then picked up the note, and held it out to Nathaniel.

He snatched it out of my hands, and read it over. "Hmmmm, it will be difficult to find someone who just arrived from the dessert, but he has golden rings around the edges of his iris… apparently he his very strong, he took on the dead king and his army with only three others to help him, and they only arrived after he fought for half an hour and ran the whole day… oh yes, this one will be a challenge indeed." His inane glare caught me looking and he roared "Don't just stand there you useless fur ball, grab your weapons and food, we split up in the morning, I will search the towns while you ask around whatever caves your mob friends hide in, ask if any one beat them to death with their own arm and had golden rings around his eyes." With that, he stabbed me in the chest… again. As she faded away, for the third time this week, she swore if he ever died, she was going to rip his head off.

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Please dont stop reading if i kill your OC, that will happen alot in this story and don't worry, if you were paying attention you see that he may play another role later in the story, peace and please review


	5. Chapter 5:Finally, on the move

OKay, well this one is a little shorter, but you can be sure, the story is actually about go go some where... finally... after this chapter... meh...

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Forge shot up, remembering the night before. After making sure his arms weren't missing, he looked around, and discovered the small wooden plank house built around him, and a table that had a bucket of water and two steaks on it.

The steaks were gone in the blink of an eye, after wards he picked up the bucket of water, and drank some as he absorbed more of the small cabin. It didn't really have any thing in it other than the table, and a bed with someone covered up in it. He squinted, and after careful consideration, pulled out his pick axe and poked the sleeping person with the end of the pick.

In the blink of an eye, a very long iron sword materialized itself under Forge's chin. Forge, being the brave soul he was dropped the pick axe like it was a hot potato, and adopted a face that looked something like the poker face from the rage comic series.

The girl looked at him with sky blue eyes for a few moments as she blinked the sleep away from her eyes, While Forge was absolutely still, trying not to provoke her to flick that sword two inches and kill him with it on accident.

Her eyes went wide and changed color, to a gray as she said "Oh my gosh I'm so sorry." She jumped up and at the same time quickly moved the sword away from Forge's neck and after that practically threw herself out the door, an interesting first impression to say the least.

Forge, still not quite sure what happened, sat there in the same position for a few more seconds with the exact same expression. After he couldn't hear the retreating footsteps any more, he slowly picked the pickaxe back up, and walked out side, seeing the girl, who looks like she was about 20, but acted more that a bit younger than that.

She was already at the bottom of the pyramid, and walking in the still cool air of the dessert morning. Seeing no other people, other than a pair that had swords stuck in each other's chests, he quickly ran down trying to catch up to her, really, she was probably his best chance of survival.

"Hey wait." He said running up behind her. The girl stayed silent but looked away embarrassed.

She said this a bit quietly "Look, I don't really know you, so I'd rather not travel with you, but I just watched someone die trying to save you, and his girlfriend asked me to make sure you didn't die after he saved your life, so be quiet and I will talk to you later." She quickly pulled out a map and compass, and headed a direction neither of them came from or were going to.

Forge stayed quiet, but the questions on his mind would probably drive him insane by the time they reached where ever she was trying to go. After many miles of dessert, the sun was at its highest, and the dessert ended, and they walked out of a desert, into freezing tundra. "Where are we even going?" forge asked as they walked shivering through the snow. Forge realized once again he still didn't have shoes.

She pulled two sets of leather out of the air and said "I was on a trading route through different kingdoms, villages, and a mob haven, but I don't have the supplies to last us both for the week its going to take for us to complete it."

She quickly handed him a pair dyed a camouflage green, while she kept a pair dyed blue. "Wait, where are you getting those things?"

She looked up and said "I have some abilities of an ender man, one of them was an ender chest I keep all my stuff in, I can access it when ever I want." She kneeled down and ignored Forge's confused look, dug a hole in the ground and after that, quickly put a dirt block above her to cover the hole. "You should change; it gets cold in here when night comes."

Forge glared at the only snowless spot on the ground, and just starter changing out there in the open, finishing putting the hat on just as she broke the block above her and climbed out. "You know, I never caught your name."

She started walking again after checking the map. "That's because I didn't tell you."

Forge walked with her for a few moments, expecting an answer, but when she said nothing else, he said "Okay, what is your name then?"

"Beatrice." She said, going quiet again and looking around.

Forge sighed and gave up on trying getting to know her, and started tossing his pick in the air, catching the handle each time.

"Please stop doing that," she said after about a half hour of shivering and the flip of a cracked pick axe in the air. "I know it's boring, but if you drop it and someone hears you, they will most likely try to kill us."

Forge raised an eyebrow and said "It is day time, I'm pretty sure there's nothing out that would attack us." He said as he continued flipping the pick axe in the air. "Besides, since we both can fight, and I judge you by your reaction time when I woke you up, we can probably handle any thing that would be out here any ways."

Beatrice shook her head in disappointment. "Look, I am sure you are a mine craft player, otherwise you wouldn't be here, or be s oblivious of how different things are." She glared at him with a cyan color in her eyes. "here is the issue, people out side of towns, will generally kill each other if they think it will make them live another day, because those people usually won't have the benefit of a farm to keep them going well enough if they are out hunting, and not to mention creepers will come out during the day sometimes, sure at a distance I can get one with my bow, but if they see us first they go up ahead and wait until we pass the tree they are hiding…." And with a hand against Forge's mouth so he would stop talking she said "Now, shush, if we get lost on the way here I am blaming you." She looked him straight in the eye, but after half a second of that her eyes changed color to a light sky blue.

"What?" Forge said, looking behind him. "Is there a spider on my back?"

"Forge, were your eyes, always like that?"

His eyebrow raised a fraction of an inch and he said a little confused, "What? Brown? Yes, why do you ask?"

She winced and put one hand behind her head, "Well, they aren't exactly brown any more." He looked a bit amused, and obviously didn't believe her. Forge motioned her to explain and she continued with "Well, I think you should see for yourself." As she said this, she pulled two buckets of water, dug a two by two hole in the ground, and tossed them both in for a miniature well. "Here, check your reflection."

Forge looked into the water, and after a minute he saw himself. But it wasn't quite how he remembered how he looked. His eyes had changed; they now had a golden ring around the edge of the iris. He sat up, and said "Well, my eyes did change… does that mean any thing here?"

Her eyes changed to a turquoise, and she got a worried expression. "It means," she started, pulling her long sword out of the void and looking around the empty forest. "They can smell you now, corrupted mobs will come from miles around trying to kill you and take your unclaimed power for their own, while uncorrupted ones will annoy the hell out of you trying to get you to pick an allegiance."

Forge felt something watching him, maybe he was just being paranoid right now because of what she said, but he could usually tell when someone was watching him. "So," he said looking carefully at the trees around him, "What should we do?"

"Run really fast, I was hoping we could keep traveling through part of the night, but that's not going to happen with the mobs after you like this, so as soon as the sun starts setting we pick a really tall tree, or dig a hole in the ground and mine away from it later."

Forge looked again at the shadows in the forest, and he swore he caught more than one pair of eyes staring back, but only for a second. "Maybe we should start running now."

As he turned around to follow Beatrice, an arrow whooshed by, but didn't even come close to hitting him, so it definitely wasn't a skeleton, maybe a clumsy zombie trying to shoot us from the shade of a tree. He turned and quickly followed Beatrice, ignoring the sound of arrows not hitting their target.

They didn't talk the rest of the time, but eventually, they got out of the cold tundra and got to a jungle, just in time for the sun to set.

Beatrice jumped in the air, climbing it quickly and easily, while Forge, noticing a zombie chasing after him with full diamond armor and an axe, panicked just a little, and fell to lower levels several times trying to get up, all the while arrows not hitting their target, usually not even the tree. But as soon as the first skeleton arrives and he isn't at the top, he is probably going to die.

Of course he did make it up the tree, but not with out a fractured wrist. "That sucked."

Beatrice, looking around, noticed a white figure climbing a nearby tree with a bow on its back. "Since when can skeletons climb trees?" she asked pointing to the tree actually not too far away.

"Who cares, let's put a wall between it and us." Beatrice quickly made a three by three hut, with small windows covered with glass that the skeletons couldn't shoot through.

After that, with out beds they sat uncomfortable on the leaves and tried to sleep, but with the growls outside they couldn't really get around to it. Beatrice, looking out the window could see a creeper in the distance, charging towards the trunk of the tree while flashing. "This is going to be a long night." With that, she slumped against the wall, and pulled her hat over her face.

Forge on the other hand, was an insomniac any ways, and didn't really like tight spaces at night, especially with another person in that tight space. He knew it was stupid to go out there, so he didn't, but he definitely wasn't getting a second of sleep to night.

Tanya couldn't believe her luck, sure, she was stabbed in the chest by her own master, and when she spawned again she cot chased down by some zombies hiding in a cave after she tried to go in looking for answers. But it was so easy to find him, that it almost seemed too good to be true.

There wasn't much of a description on him, so she almost walked up to the pair in leather and asked them directions to the nearest town, but he turned around, flashing the golden rings around his regular brown. They were talking about something to do with mobs being able to smell him. Of course, she had to see if it was true, and sniffed the air, she usually didn't, because being a cat it gave her a short attention span when it came to fish, but there was a smell in the air. It wasn't something you could really name as a human, because as a human you wouldn't be able to smell it. But, her human mind had to describe it as something, and the closest she came to the smell was power.

She smiled faded back and, turned around to see a half corrupted skeleton behind a tree from them, maybe trying to decide if it would be worth it to try and partner with the challenger.

At first, she thought about using her ice sword, but it would melt in this heat, so she left it in its case, in stead she pulled out a dagger at her waist, and trying not to hurt the skeleton too bad, took the bow from it, along with its arrows.

She aimed carefully, and let loose a shot. Too bad it didn't even hit with in a mile. She always sucked at shooting, but she couldn't challenge them in the open, both were challengers, even if one didn't have an affinity yet.

They started running, but not from her awful marksmanship, they were actually ignoring it. One even muttered something about a clumsy zombie with a bow. She gritted her teeth in anger, and jumped to the top of a tree and started following them, firing off a bunch of arrows, of course none of them hitting her target. The only thing she managed to do was hit a skeleton in the head that was about to try and shoot them.

"This is ridiculous!" She quietly screamed in anger, as she broke the bow and had to go take the skeleton's that she killed by accident.

After many hours of completely failing to hit them, she ended up glaring at the shack they made on top of a tree after she climbed on not too far away from theirs. She glared at the bow like she was tying to light it on fire with her mind, and when that didn't work she snapped it in half and throw the parts of the bow off the tree.

Afterwards she sat cross legged waiting for them to come out, so she could finish the mission, even if she failed she would only come back and tell her master where they are.

"So, you are telling me, that there is nothing we can do to help them."

The two figures in hoodless continued working on the computer, but one said "Ya, sorry, but this isn't just some program, he is in an actual place, this is just data showing what's happening on the other side, unless you want to go down there yourself, there's actually not much you can do to help him."

That got Sandra's attention. "You mean, we can actually go there?"

The hacker who talked earlier spoke up again "No, I mean YOU, can go down there."

Sandra smiled and walked over to them, kicking them both somewhere a man should never be kicked. "How about this, you two are going to make it to where we can get there, and I won't kick the shit out of you."

One of the feebly nodded, in the fetal position on the floor, while the other, having a higher pain tolerance was leaning on the chair, and said "If we fuck up while we are there, we die, are you sure?"

"Absolutely." With a bit more encouragement from Sandra, the two started bringing in equipment, luckily her parents were out at the police station right now, reporting him as a lost person, and being police themselves, wouldn't be back for a while. They didn't trust Sandra to be alone with the kids, so they were dropped off at a day care while she continued, what they thought, was tracking him down using his computer.

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I would apreciate more villian submissions, I only have two and tehy don't eally count... becuase they were lostes as nuetral... villians please... or im not doing another chapter... for a while, becuase im evil, and uncreative.


	6. Chapter 6: The army

**Sorry for the long wait for the story, shcool and stuff... you know how it is probably... anyways, hope you enjoy, and this probably isnt one of my greatest chapters becuase i ahd alot of trouble trying to figure out what to do with it. I think this might be a bit fast paced, but i dont know what else to do with it so... ya.**

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As they sat in the uncomfortably small wood hose, with leaves and branches below them, and the sounds of the dead outside, Forge had an almost irresistible urge to go through his pick axe at one, even though he broke off one end just messing with it while trying to sleep.

Forge sighed and sat up against the wall, looking over to Beatrice, who was equally unlucky in trying to sleep, but at least she was pretending to sleep. "How did you deal with all this when you were first dropped in here?" he asked after looking up, and staring at the stars from one block that he broke some time earlier.

She didn't answer, but Forge could hear her mumbling about it, after that she turned towards the wall, and was curled up in a ball that fit on one block. With a soft thunk sound, Forge hit the back of his head on the wall, and slowly slid down it, trying, and mostly failing to sleep.

Groaning, he sat up and hoped that day time would come faster. Forge was extremely confused for about a half second. After that he was extremely aware of where he was. With the static sky, the black pillars, and green white stone ground.

The end. He considered taking a look around, but since all the ender men were there, that probably wasn't a good idea, as he would get in staring contest with one. Well, that is if they weren't all in a circle surrounding a blonde guy about as tall as them, with two diamond swords on his back, next to him was a girl in a skirt, hoodie, and boots all black, she looked like that ender girl from the pyramid, he didn't get a good look and was slightly delirious but it was definitely her.

As a hand closed around the back of his throat, and a voice that seamed to have its own echo with out a cave said quietly "You're not supposed to be here." Forge of course, wasn't going down with out a fight, even if this was a dream. He kicked out, and the hand disappeared from his throat with the sound of a teleport.

H caught a shadow image of the thing that attacked him. It had the skin of an ender man, but was only as tall as average human height, and wore diamond armor with a sword and shield that matched.

Another teleport sound, Forge ducked, and a sword flew over head, and He kicked out, meeting a shield, but heard a grunt, and a grinding sound as diamond amour grated against hard obsidian. "What the hell you just attack someone unprovoked like that?" Forge yelled as the dark walker teleported again.

"I am the guardian of this domain, second only to the dragon, no humans are allowed here, so even as a mere spirit of one, you pose a threat and must be sent back." With that, a flurry of teleports started around Forge, and he was quickly surrounded four glowing see through ender knights, or whatever he was. All of them charged with raised shields, and forge could only stop one of them from charging, the others very effectively crushed him, and tossed him off the platform into the void.

With the last of the breath he had he quickly yelled "shitshitshitshitshitshitshi-"

Beatrice stared open mouthed as as Forge shot up, still yelling curses at whomever he was fighting.

"Ummmm…"

He looked confused for a moment as he looked around, then clutched his back and said "That fucking hurt, if I ever get to the end im killing that guy."

Beatrice wasn't in such awe any more; instead she shook her head and knocked down a wall from the hut. "Come on, we have to get back to base by tomorrow night if it kills us."

She took a peek outside, and saw the mobs from before all hiding under trees, while creepers, both corrupted and not, hung around pretty much every where else. Except on the trees, and spiders, they just kind of ignored every one.

She turned back and saw Forge, still very confused about what happened. "Im pretty sure I just died, so why am I still here again?"

"Just come on, we have to go." She looked out side again, making sure the coast was clear, and that skeletons weren't staring up ready to fire. Hearing Forge finally sitting up behind her, she took off, and jumped to the tree across from them, landing on the leaf blocks.

Forge watched and cringed at what she obviously expected him to do "im going to live a short life if this keeps up." He muttered, and took a running start, with a jump that more than cleared the gap, almost getting to the center of the tree.

That drop didn't exactly feel good though, nothing was broken, but it might leave a big purple bruise. While he recovered from the first jump, Beatrice jumped twice more, the second time almost falling short, and just in time putting a wood block right where the empty space she was going to fall through used to be.

Forge's jaw dropped to the tree he was standing on as he watched her jumping from tree to tree, and sliding down vines like a native of the jungle. He groaned, and followed her path as best as he could. Any other possibility meaning death, whether by a mob on the forest floor, or bashing his head against the ground below, he didn't really want that to happen, so he made it. He then proceeded, to take a mis step while trying to ask Beatrice a question, needless to say, he fell… it didn't feel to good.

Luckily, all the zombies were smart enough here to not run out into the sunlight, and the skeletons were too far away to hit them. But the creepers on the other hand, came from every direction at once.

Forge struggled to stand up, after nearly breaking both of his legs, a squad of creepers ran at him, some of them flashing white in the count down already. He couldn't run from them this time.

Blood running from a cut above his eye, obscuring his vision, he quickly pulled the nearly broken pick axe off his back. "I, am not." He said standing up, taking a fighting stance. "Going to die here."

He drew his arm back, and threw it at the closest one, not daring to risk getting within explosion range. This was the first time he really got a good look at the creeper, it looked like a walking plant with a frown face, and right now that image was the scariest thing in the world.

She looked back as she heard a slight sound from Forge, then a very loud thump. She raced over and checked the ground. Creepers were rushing at him from everywhere, and even if she could get down quick enough to help, creepers are a lot different here than in the game, making them more dangerous. First, if they are in 'ready mode' when they die they instantly explode. They also don't die when they explode normally, just pass out, unless they actually try to make a much bigger explosion than normal.

She couldn't just leave him to die though. She started sliding down the vines, hoping she could help, even with out arrows. _I don't want to resort to using it, but it might be the only way out_. She thought as she landed on one of the leaf out croppings, and started down the next vines.

He couldn't do much to help himself out here; the pick axe completely missed the creeper, and dug into a tree next to it. I guess you have to run out of luck sometime. Groaning, he turned, and did a sort of limp hop, trying to put some distance between him and the creepers, there were probably at least five, maybe more.

He heard a new sound with the hissing that grew louder and louder, he heard quick foot steps ahead of him, but he couldn't stop because there were many more behind him. As he went past a large tree, a part of it jumped out at him, a creeper was hiding on the tree. Hiissssssssss…

The assassin watched, hiding in the trees above as the golden eyed challenger made fatal mistakes, back to back, and flew into a tree from an explosion. If it continued like this, she wouldn't even have to lift a finger, all she would have to do is bring the proof of his death to her master, and he would bring it to whoever ordered the hit, and he would collect the reward. Her thoughts quickly wandered away from the struggle down on the forest floor as she wondered why someone would order a hit on someone that has only met one other person in the world, when she noticed movement around the creepers, both on the ground and in the trees.

Being an assassin, she was trained to pick out other stealthily people such as herself, and there was one on the forest floor, moving like a shadow among the creepers, amazingly, none of them saw the figure as it maneuvered around, using the shadows to its advantage, and the creepers weren't paying much attention to their surroundings, more concerned with the possible new edition to their ranks should they get the kill. None of them were flashing now, just moving as fast as they could to get to the challenger, before his partner could climb down the tree.

While the one on the ground moved commando style to the group of creepers, there was fighting ass around the forest, but neither challenger seemed to notice, not that any normal person would any ways, this was a kind of fighting that was done sneakily, small cries of surprise from zombies, and the sound of snapping bones from skeletons, and a few twangs of bows.

The first creeper was nearly on the challenger now, but an arrow flew and killed a creeper in back… making it, and the ones following it turn around to see who shot. When this happened, the commando got close enough, to leap out of cover, and tackle the lead creeper behind a tree, there was a glint of a green looking dagger, that looked suspiciously like a creeper shard. Since there wasn't an explosion, it is safe to say the creeper did not live a long life afterwards.

After that, a hail of arrows opened up from the trees, and when Tanya looked in the direction of the arrows, they were human looking, but had bone white skin, and most wore next to nothing, aside forms what was necessary to cover their, eh hem nether regions.

She should have known better tan to think it would be that easy. Groaning, she leaned against the tree as uncorrupted mobs swarmed the place, seeking a powerful partner. Now, even if the rest leave him here after he chooses, it will be very difficult to handle.

Forge woke up, and found himself souronded by people, people who vaguely resembled different mobs. "Good your awake challenger, time to choose your allegiance."

Forge looked around for a moment before looking to Beatrice and saying. "Is this bad?"

She shrugged and said "Its bad, but it could be worse, you could be dead."

Forge looked at the faces surrounding him, and was sure there was at least one from each mob, one guy even had three heads like the wither boss, while others looked like a cow, and one a wolf. "So, how does this work?"

Beatrice stood next to him, and pulled him up as he continued to observe the crowd. "They try to convince you to pick one of them, after that you have to meet the boss of that mob, and it is never very pleasant."

Forge sighed and said "Well, I guess we should just get over with it, who wants to go first?"

All of them yelled me at the same time….this was going to be difficult.

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**R&R, even if you are a guest review and vote, who should he pick? a stealthy creeper? A strong golem? A fire wielding blaze? Or something a bit more original? please give your opinions and why, if the reasoning is excelent enough it may change the course of the story.**


	7. Chapter 7:Just follow my lead

**Okay, so I jsut got inspired to write more often becuase of a flood, well not really it was only four, Oc's, even though four isn't that many it gave me tons of ideas for side plats and filler so i wouldn't have to end the story so quick! As long as i have OC's backstories to invent and milk like no tommorow, i have filler, if i have filler, you have something to read, remember that!**

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Forge had been listening to different mobs drone on about what the challenger that partners with them will be granted. Forge was quite interested in a few, but the others were either boring, or had major drawbacks like melting in water, or the powers being completely useless in daylight.

But he finally narrowed it down to what he wanted. Of course Beatrice, near he was about to pick, whispered in his hear "We can't let them have you, they have a complete monopoly on the challengers, and if you pick one of them, they will take you straight to their leader to become a follower, you won't have a choice in the matter." Forge pretended like he didn't hear anything important, the mobs were just outside of hearing range, being 'polite' and letting them talk "Thay aren't really bad people, but the challenger that took over from the last mob leader is gathering an army, and I'm pretty sure you wanted to handle Herobrine yourself."

Forge nodded and said "I get the picture, what's the plan?" she had a very devious smile on her face before standing up.

"I was hoping to be able to teach him a few things about this in a safe place before a bunch of haven scouts took it over, and I was just hoping that-" as she kept talking a strange dark fog came out of nowhere, obscuring every one's vision. "-He wouldn't get rushed into it and-", by now most every one was seeing double, triple, then quadruple. Strange thing was they only saw quadruple of Beatrice.

Behind the mob representatives, past the zombie foot soldiers there incase the challengers tried to run, and hidden from view behind the skeleton archers, keeping watch for human soldiers, or more corrupted mobs, a small group of ender men sat, and they saw what was happening down there, the illusion everyone fell for. Every one but them… after all, it was there power, why wouldn't they be able too see through it. not bothering to shake the others from the spell, it would take too long any ways, they flashed higher into the trees, and chased the challenger and her friend, brimming with power waiting to be tapped into. One way or another.

Tanya, watched from the trees for a long time as this went on. If they managed to take him, it would be impossible to get to him, even as just a soldier they would keep him under protection if he is powerful. Judging by how big of a crowd he attracted, which must have been at least three war bands, five scout groups and a small squad of specialists, one of which being the creeper assassin, the others a group of enders that held back from the crowd.

Tanya rose from her perch as the fog rolled in. She knew this trick, she saw it before, but only once. She died when it was used on her, but a good assassin never falls for the same trick twice. Especially when its not even directed at them the second time. Watching all the illusions carefully, she picked one out of the smoke running away with the target, who was blinded form the fog. The illusions all ran in different directions, making noise and commotion, drawing off most of the soldiers.

Tanya smiled and drew her daggers. With the soldiers gone, it would be a much easier kill, she just had to strike at the right moment. "Okay goldy, im coming for you" she said to her self as she raced forward, landing on heads, jumping off them, and with grace that couldn't be matched by the quickest of spiders, leaped from tree to tree, and slid down vines after Forge.

"Remember Tanya, a good assassin doesn't leave a trail of bodies painting the path they went… a great assassin, leaves no one left alive to see the bodies." A few words she remembered, when she first started training under Nathaniel, before he went bat shit insane. Words she keeps to heart even now. Leave no trace you were there, and if that's impossible, kill every witness to the scene.

Seth Houser woke up, with tall men in black suits all around him. Some looked more human than others, while some that stood in the distance of the gray-white island, looked like shadow figures with purple eyes. A familiar face stood above him, extending a hand "Welcome to the end Seth" The familiar face, with purple eyes, and skin, which was covered by pale blonde hair.

Seth smiled, and took her hand, and pulled himself up. All the way as tall as her. Then he finally realized what happened. His face fell. "Wait… I died, didn't I?"

She looked away for a second and nodded. But then her face brightened and she said "But now that won't happen again, you came back, and we can go where ever we want from here now."

He heard a distant scream somewhere, but when he looked where it came from, he only saw a few wandering corrupted ender men, some obsidian pillars, and an obsidian platform with a single warrior in diamond armor with a shield and a sheathed sword. That warrior looked like an ender man; aside form the armor and the height issue.

"Right," he turned back to Cynthia. "We can go wherever we want… I want to make sure my sacrifice wasn't in vain, to see what happened to that new guy."

Cynthia got a nervous look, but it was only there for a second before she brightened up again. "Okay, but after that, I want to explore the world, there is so much too see, and all of the humans and mobs live so close together for how huge and beautiful the world is... so, when we are done making sure he wasn't evil and he is still alive, we can do that right?" Cynthia looked up at him; Seth was taller than her now. Her purple eyes were, not quite pleading, but maybe hopeful would be a right word there.

Seth smiled, and hugged her close, of course he couldn't say no to her. "Definitely, we will explore the worlds together, all the way to the Farlands." The Farlands were a biome that only existed near the rumored edge of the world, of course no one had ever found it, but they had to exist. The world couldn't go on forever.

"I wouldn't if I were you" Seth heard an echoing voice behind him. "That boy, he is strong, and though his goal is clearly to kill Herobrine, the same as every other challenger, his motives and methods are unclear… disaster will follow him."

Seth turned to the short, or rather; regular sized ender man and said "What do you mean?"

He stared up, and Seth could sense a power and wisdom behind that face, hidden behind those eyes. "Legends were spoken, of a boy who would come, golden rings in his eyes, He will be the catalyst of a war, a war in which not only humans fighting amongst themselves while fighting mobs, but mobs will be fighting each other as well, there will be no clear goal in this, but it will spread like wild fire until someone comes out on top." He pointed to a pillar, and it opened to a portal filled with bright light. "If you go, you may not come back with out finding a stronghold, so be sure this is the choice you want to make."

Seth didn't hesitate, this sounded like an adventure. He couldn't resist a good adventure. Cynthia quickly followed behind him, as she looked at his changed appearance. Now, Seth wore a black hoodie, matching hers, like most of the ender people, and he wore plain black pants, with black shoes too. The outfit actually seemed to absorb the light around it, in this already dark place, it seemed even darker.

"Come on, how long does it take to set this up? It's been days!" Sandra didn't want too see what was happening in there any more, every time she looked something was either trying to kill her brother, or he was killing something else.

"This is a very delicate piece of equipment." He said after banging his foot against it, nearly breaking it…. his foot I mean. "And while I set up the hardware, Richard has to make calculations that most people would comprehend, including me, he said as he pointed to Richard." He was actually a pretty big guy, and not the fat kind, not exactly someone you would think was a computer hacker/programmer.

Richard stayed quiet but Sandra turned back to James "That doesn't excuse anything, If we cant get in there and get him back out, he is going to die there, whether he lives to be an old man or not."

James stared open mouthed at the monitor and said "IF things keep going on how they are now, I don't think we'd need to worry about him living that long." Sandra couldn't stop herself from looking this time. She didn't like what she saw.

As Beatrice sprinted through the jungle, with a blinded Forge getting pulled along, she caught the familiar sound of teleporting ender men. This could be trouble.

Even if she still had arrows, they would have just teleported away, and her long sword was probably going to be too slow to get any of them. There is no other choice now, and they were probably close enough for the outpost guards to see the explosion.

She reached into the void again, and pulled out a selection of fireworks, and lit the red ones on fire, quickly setting them where they would go above the trees to be seen, right before all the shards of it light the forest on fire.

She looked back as Forge coughed, leaning against a tree and rubbing the fog from his eyes. "This stuff stings, warn a guy next time."

She said quickly "We don't have much time, we have to get ready, and get a defense going, and pray that someone sees these." As she finished the fireworks went off, just above the tree line.

"We got followed?" his answer was a night black fist slamming into his stomach, Forge reacted quickly tough, and grabbed it before it could teleport away form him. Becoming an Ender obviously didn't make you stronger, it merely gave you teleportation. Too bad, if someone grabs you they either come with the ender, or the ender is just stuck. In this case, he followed the ender through whatever they use to teleport, which in this case was about ten blocks away.

Forge may not have been able too see, but he had a hold of the ender, and he knew how to fight. That ender wasn't going to last much longer. "GEDDOFF ME YOU PSYCHO!"

"Screw you! You attacked me!"

Beatrice slowly drew the most deadly weapon here at the time, since no one else had a weapon here, that just happened to be her long sword, she wasn't afraid to use it, she knew exactly what happened when it hit someone.

A teleport behind her, and she kicked out, keeping her blade ready for an attack on the front, "I am not going down so easily!" she shouted as, exactly as she thought one teleported in front, trying to disarm her.

They definitely wouldn't win if it kept up like this, forge with his hand to hand skills couldn't lose his weapons, but they could hold her hostage if he kept fighting and they caught her. She was more afraid that he would keep fighting if that happened.

Somewhere in Nevada… or not

The outpost watch was the most boring job there was, we were supposed to make sure no army, mob or human, came through, but no one was stupid enough to challenge a trading post for challengers, all most all of them had a friend that lived in there that worked as a guard, or a cook, or a hunter… or whatever job that was needed at the time. Any ways, it would be stupid. Right now, a spiky red haired pale kid that was about five feet tall, was sitting on the roof, staring at the horizon all around him. Then he heard a sound.

Yahiko, found the regular duty boring… but this wasn't regular duty anymore, he grinned and called below "A distress beacon, red and in the jungle, lets pack up and see what we can do over there.." Yahiko, confident in his abilities, had no qualms about going into a battle which they knew nothing about. The other guards for today however.

Boo shadows, Kuro Evans, and June came up from inside the barracks. Boo shadows, wore a red hoodie with black accents, black shorts, and gray shoes, stained with what was presumably ash, he also had short brown hair, pale skin, and carried a sword that looked like it was molded from blood, it had a red aura around it and was hot to the touch, he was an uncorrupted blaze, but he didn't have the power of shooting fireballs out of his hand like most did, instead it manifested itself through his sword and bow, his daggers he left in there sheaths. As he stared around with eyes as black as night, he said "Something interesting happening?"

Kuro, was wearing black with red detail, pretty much a photo negative of shadows, while boo was pale, she was tan, while boo had brown hair, she had black, while he had black eyes, her eyes were red, obviously not from crying.. she simply said "Okay is there a plan or any thing? If it was red like you said we should be careful, but get there fast as possible.

Yahiko said "That was the plan."

June stayed quiet all this time, and as usual she escaped their notice as she heard in the distance, a creeper explosion, and new that was the way the firework came from.. She was dressed in all green, with a hoodie that had the likeness of a creeper's face on the top, had green hair and green eyes she had the standard creeper outfit for the uncorrupted, and a green blade to go along with it also the standard weapon for a creeper. Only she had two.

A wind blew towards them from the jungle, jungle pretty much surrounded them on all sides, but it happened to come from the part of the jungle where the beacon came from. There was a strange smell it carried. All of them looked at eachother, they knew that smell by instinct, an an ability given to them when they first became mobs after their human lives ended.

Yahiko said quietly "I think, we best get to him before June kills everything there, she doesn't have a host yet and will force him if necessary. The others swore that she was right behind them. They should hurry.

June carried on, feeling her way through the jungle. She could hear the fighting, and she could smell something now too, she wasn't quite sure what it was, but she knew it was something that she had to get before the others got here, they would probably stop her or try to get it first. Either way, she was curious, she rarely met a challenger, and even then they had been taken, the smell of power was over taken by something else, wood smoke for the blazes, brimstone for the ghasts, that one wasn't very pleasant, those sort of things, she wondered what smell it would make if a challenger took a creeper as a partner…

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**Where do you people think this is going?** S**ounds interesting don't it? I hope you enjoyed it, if you did, review, if you didn't, review any ways and tell me why it sucked.**


	8. chapter 8: an interesting conondrum

**Sorry for the wait, next chapter it is here, any questions or confusions please tell me and I'll try to put them up for next chapter or message you :).**

~Forge~

Forge had had it. He was bruised, beaten, exhausted, and blind fighting an opponent who, if he let go of, would probably drop him off a cliff. He lost it. He still had a hold of the ender person's arm. Now, he decided that was where his attack would start.

Forge grabbed the dark arm with both hand, as another punch found its way to Forge's stomach, but he didn't care about that, nothing was stopping him. He turned around, and pulled the ender over his shoulder, dislocating the ender man's arm in the process. While it screamed, its friends took notice that even without a weapon, even without a partner somewhere in the world that formed a contract with him to grant him the power of that mob, he was still very dangerous.

One of them yelled, this one a girl "He got Rick! Help him!" Forge heard the flurry of teleports around him, and knew he had to work fast. He quickly ducked under the swing of an arm he couldn't see, but he hear it and feel the wind as it passed over his head. He jumped toward the sound of another teleport, and grabbed around a tree, a tree that luckily had vines on it, he quickly climbed up before one could grab his foot, he could hear them arguing about how to get him down without going against orders and killing him, but he couldn't hear the exact words.

As he climbed up, he heard someone land on the leaves above him. Peering through fog obscured eyes, he saw someone in almost all white. That figure had something shiny in its hand. "Say good night."

~Beatrice~

As she wrestled with one ender girl for her sword, she heard a scream behind her that didn't sound quite human. Then the ender girl's eyes grew really wide as she screamed "He got rick! Help him!" Then she quickly let go and teleported. Beatrice quickly turned and watched Forge fight blind, then make a fail attempt at a counter attack that might have been funny in different circumstances.

She watched him climb up the tree, and saw the assassin land in front of him with a knife. She couldn't do any thing to help him, but as she tried to call out a warning, she heard a hissing behind her.

She turned and saw a corrupted creeper, which had no arms any more, and instead had four tiny legs. Panicking, she swung her sword at it like a base ball player swings at a fast ball. Right before her sword met its mark, iit had time to flash white one time. It was too late, it started a count down that couldn't be stopped. Death would only put that count down at zero. The explosion knocked her off her feet, as she flew threw the air, the world going black, she wondered if her farm was ready to pick yet.

When she landed, she thought she was delirious because the green thing she hit was soft, who knew trees were soft? She slowly closed her eyes, but swore at a later time that she could smell, a nearly overpowering scent of flowers, and freshly cut grass.

~Tanya~

She had him, two days without sleep, and she finally had him. An explosion caught her eye for a second, sending a face well known across the civilized Minecraftia, Beatrice the trader. So this was the one that he was traveling with. As she turned back to her target, she froze when she realized he wasn't on the tree, when she looked to the explosion, he had jumped off, and landed on an unsuspecting ender man.

She gritted her teeth and slid down the vines. She wasn't letting him get away, she was so close. Forge was wrestling with the group of ender people trying to pull him off their friend, he had his arm around their friend's throat, and wrapped his legs around him, he kept hitting the same ender man in the back of the head until two of the ender people grabbed onto his arm, and another started punching him in the stomach, all the while yelling "Let him go we were just following orders!"

She jumped off halfway down, and threw her daggers into the ender guy and girl's backs that were holding Forge's arm, he would have kept punching the dner, but knew something as wrong and quickly moved to the side, headfirst into a tree. With a flick of her hands, a pair of hidden blades made of diamond shot out from under her wrists.

Both Forge and the ender he was choking were unaware of her presence, the one that was punching the target however. He looked up with wide eyes for a split second, before disappearing in a flash of darkness. A shadow fell over her, and a leg foot came down directly on her forehead. The world flashed white, and she found herself on the ground, what she saw made her smile, the target, out cold right in front of her. She must have been knocked out for a second or two, because there was another ender knocked out next to him, and she could hear the last ender remaining crying over his fallen comrades behind her, if she could just… stand up, and fight through the pain that was quickly appearing out of no where, with the adraeniline wearing off she ahd nothing to dull it with.

But she was so close, she wasn't going to let ten blocks of dirt, a concussion, and a potentially broken arm stop her. She tried to sit up and fire flared in her side, but she didn't cry out… she wouldn't be able to fight an ender in her state.

~June~

As she walked, guided by the smells, and sounds of a struggle, she heard a hiss of a creeper, and a girl yelp, after that an explosion that happened to have a body land, into arms that happened to be stretched out at the time, trying to avoid running into trees. She couldn't see after all. She sat there, surprised that the explosion knocked the girl right to her, an odd coincidence, but then again, odd things happened all the time in Minecraftia, you never knew when you could discover some strange new thing. She gently laid down the girl onto some bushes nearby as she fell unconscious, but she didn't smell like coppery blood, so she couldn't be injured too badly, but she definitely wouldn't be fighting.

Now, she moved unseen, she knew this because no one ever saw her when she moved in the jungle, and people rarely saw her when she walked out in a completely open field, a benefit of being a creeper, that and she could explode with out dying, but not a particularly useful skill if she couldn't stay awake afterwards. She gripped daggers she was born with, and treasured them since she was born form humanity, into the ranks of the mobs. Mobs had very few possessions of their own, so what they had they kept close to them always. Perhaps the only thing that distinguished her from other creepers besides her duel green daggers, was a scarf that she often took to wrapping around her face before a battle, she didn't need to see so why bother leaving her white face a target to slash at in a fight? Besides, the few people that saaw her usually only saw her after she killed half the people in the room with out any one noticing until just then.

She could hear the shouts of her comrades from the barracks getting closer, that would be an issue if she was going to find out what all the hype was about challengers that had no set power, only raw unfocused power that seemed to attract attention and mayhem where ever it went.

~Forge~

When the ender that was trying to give Forge internal bleeding teleported away somewhere unseen by him, the one he was chocking teleported, and Forge came with him to the top of a tree, then that top of the tree quickly turned into the middle of the air when the ender man jumped off it, intent on knocking Forge off his back by hitting him against the ground, and with him cushioning the blow for the ender, he would walk away relatively unscathed.

He wasn't letting that happening. Still in the air, he let go of the ender man's neck and instead grabed his shoulders, while at the same time unwrapping his legs from the ender man's back, he quickly shoved down on his shoulders while attempting to lift his legs in the air. The ender man was skilled in this sort of fight though, a fight were a half movement could make a difference, he twusted around so forge was the one going to hit first, just before the impact. As Forge stared wide eyed at the rapidly approaching dirt, he swore he saw a green blur pass by at the edge of his vision, but didn't have time to look because, he already hit the dirt.

~June~

June heard an enormous thump right beside her, and she nearly leaped out of her skin in fright, after all she didn't see it coming. After a minute a small groan was heard, and the smell, that unnamable smell grew stronger very quickly.

With all of the participants of the recent battle pretty much out of commission, or hurt enough to not fight, the field was mostly quiet save for crying ender man some where behind her. She quickly found her way closer to the source of that power, and felt around the ground to find it. As she searched, she found a new smell nearby, and heard a girl grunting in pain, moving towards the challenger June sniffed a few times to find out what it was. Then she sneezed. It was a cat, she was allergic to them… she always disliked cats with a great intensity, and this one was probably going to try to steal her prize from her. She wasn't going to let that slide.

~Tanya~

She was so close, only bocks away now. But something was off. She could smell a faint scent of gun powder. But it was faint so she was probably okay, whoever the creeper was, since it smelled like gunpowder instead of flowers, because here the smells as well as telling you how strong someone was compared to you, depending on which smell it was ttold you if it was an enemy of a frined to you, for creepers it was flowers and grass for friendship, and the smell of gunpowder, like when a gun goes off, you can just smell the malice in the air.

As she went closer, the apin starting to fade, she ate quite a bit before the fight and was still full, so it was helping her now. She heard a sneeze. Here, that only ment one thing, only creepers were allergic to cats, and when they sneeze, they are uncorrupted, making them extremely dangerous with their stealth skills, and to make it worse, when they sneeze, they know you are there.

But flicked her wrists again, knowing she was running out of weapons, the daggers in the back of an ender man and woman, her ice blade wouldn't work in the jungle, and she sucked with a bow. She was running out of options, but she wasn't going to give up with out a fight, she may never et an opportunity like this again to kill the challenger, if he gets a partner, he will be a very dangerous enemy with his aura unlocked.

She froze in place, and scanned the ground around her, searching with her instinct to find the hidden warrior. She saw it for half a second, five blocks away, and apparently looking for her just as hard too, but not with its eyes, with its ears. When she looked directly at her, she faded again. This one was strong, Tanya could only see her using peripheral vision, vision out fo the sides of you eye that could see movement, but no real detail, this would be a difficult fight for both of them, Tanya may as well have been blind, being unable too see her opponent, and Tanya was trained in the art of stealth so heavily she could move silently and undetected through a room of fellow assassins.

They moved around and searched for each other for several minutes, and only started fighting after they accidently bumped into each other, neither detecting the other until that happened.

~Yahiko and company~

They finally found Beatrice, laying unconcius on some leaves, quickly, boo shadows being the alchemist of the group, gave her a few potions, but it would still be a while before she woke up. "Damn, think she is going to be alright?" asked Kuro.

"Of course!" replied boo, "My instant health potions are potent enough to brine back the dead." He only said that part half jokingly. "Well, we should probably find that challenger, red only goes up if someone escorting one here is under attack right?"

Yahiko nodded and said "That is correct, now judging from this, The challenger kept fighting after Beatrice was taken down, at least a minute or two longer, so lets find him, if he can fight that long with no powers of his own, then he will be a valuable ally., as long as June doesn't get her self killed trying to make the contract with him she should be fine too."

The three quickly jumped into action, Kuro already high in the trees, ready to strike form above, Yahiko in front, ready to fight off any ground forces getting past Yahiko, and Boo in the back. It isn't that he wasn't a good fighter, he was just as good if not better than Yahiko, but he was the one with the potion set and the best archer of the group, so he was long range support. As they moved up, Kuro suddenly dropped in right in front of Yahiko.

"Find anything?" He asked, cluthing his blade just a little tighter ready for a fight.

She shook her head and said "Nooo, I just came down to say high," Yahiko looked disappointed, not understanding the sarcasm. "Yes you moron! The challenger is up ahead but I can hear fighting down there, I couldn't see either of them…. So im guessing at least one of them was June, the other one though… I'm not too sure about…"

That was not good news. As far as they knew she wasn't much of a fighter in a straight up brawl, her skills in staying undetected were her greatest strength, even though she had a few tricks up her sleeve, she still couldn't knife fight to save her life.

All of them sprinted off, and climbed a tree just on the edge of the fight. They saw the challenger, laying down about fifteen blocks from two dead ender men. Well one was a girl but still. As they watched, they couldn't see a thing down threre. But they heard metal against metal, and running eet all around the small clearing.

Yahiko nudged Boo by the shoulder. "I think you already know what I have planned" He said as he looked between Kuro and Boo. The Three had worked together for a few years now, and knew what he was thinking.

Kuro slid down the tree, Boo readied his bow, and Yahiko shielded his eyes as Boo fired from a bow made of Blaze rods, and a golden thread for the string.

~Forge~

Forge sat up in the dirt, everything hurt about ten times worse now. He still couldn't see that well. "Damn this sucks, worst day ever." He tried again to rub the ender fog from his eyes, and this time it actually worked. Smiling he said, maybe this won't be so bad after all, looks like all the enders died any ways." He took a look behind him, and swore he saw to blurry people fighting, right before a blaze rod arrow landed in the middle. In a huge flash of ligh, there were two screams. One was Forge, the other a cat-like yowl as somewhere, she was stumbling around blind, about to be roped up with slik thread by Kuro. But Forge didn't know that. The only thing on his mind was putting his fist through the head of the next person to touch him.

~Beatrice~

She groaned and sat up off her nice soft bed. And looking around, she saw that it wasn't 'her' bed, she was in the medical ward of the trading post. That explosion must of hurt a lot more than she felt. Then, a familiar face walked in the door. with sliver moon like hair, a scar about the same color on his left cheek, and one of his two green eyes covered by his hair, he walked in with that black hood, blue jeans, and green sneakers. Death bringer. Once was a terror amoung the villages as a bandit group leader, but after Beatrice discovered he was a challenger, and took him into her squad, he became on of the most loyal allies to her.

Looking up, he grinned and said "Since your awake, no point in asking if your okay, so how about we take a walk to the jail huh? There are three, should I say… interesting, people in there. One of them nearly took Yahiko's head off with that knockout punch of his."

Beatrice sighed and said "I was hoping this would be easier than that, but here nothing comes with out a price I guess. Time to start negotiating for his release." Then she remembered thet there was only one jail cell in pretty much the whole base, they just locked up every one in it that pissed them off. "Wait, who was in there with him?"

Death bringer smiled and snapping his fingers, a flame appeared in them bright as lava, "Oh, but that's the best part."

**YAY CLIFF HANGERS**

**YAY CLIFF HANGERS**


	9. 9:please anything but politics

**Sorry for the wait, and apologies if this chapter isn't up to par, I tend to do better with battle scenes and story line.**

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~Herobrine~

He looked upon the empty room in oblivion, a dimension solely consisting of a single pyramid made of a material unknown to the Minecraftians that inhabit the multi dimension some thought of as a game. This place was what one may call 'neutral ground', a meeting place of the three most powerful forces in the dimensions of cubes and undead. Only one of them had made it so far.

"Maybe we should stop leaving so early," started a cloaked figure in black wielding a scythe, he had the appearance of what some may call Death in certain cultures. "Notch always arrives right at the bell, and Steve, well being the explorer he is, never seems to arrive on time."

Herobrine grinned at the mention of his brothers, while most would consider him an icon of evil, he only appeared so because he was the force that ruled the mobs of the over world and the nether. "Indeed, but one must set the stage prior to the play, if one is to maintain his image." He walked down the room, soaking in every detail as he did. The white stone that made up the walls, chandeliers of glow stone and torches lining the walls, and the round table centering it all, with just enough seats for the brothers and 15 followers. That number was actually picked because of the number of mob bosses, the 'hostile mobs' and one that most people believed were extinct. The ender men and zombie pig men refused to include themselves however, a pity, because the pig men were some of the physical strongest and the ender were among the most magically inclined.

As his followers, leaders of their respective races spread out through the cave, the doors opened earlier than the hero expected them too. Someone must have been eager for this one.

Notch walked though the door, and stared daggers at Herobrine, but Herobrine was used to this at the beginning of a council meeting, and simply waved with the most irritating grin he could muster. Notch was flanked by a team of valkeyries and their queen, all of them could fly and the queen could teleport. They moved as a unit, far from the divided team of Herobrine's, admittedly most of the mob bosses were stronger than any single valkyrie, but they worked as a team while Herobrine's own competed against each other, that was a weakness in battle he would have to work on.

Stalking up to Herobrine, Notched poked his finger into his face and said through clenched teeth. "I warned you about this, that one day you would bring in someone that could not be reigned in so easily, all these 'challengers' you bring in and pit against one another, are ruining this world, they all lead wars and rebellions amongst your own people, and bring in all the more for me to sort through, and what the hell do you think Steve has to say about this?!"

"Nothing, he doesn't care, he believes that humans can solve their own problems with 'ingenuity and courage to face the unknown', honestly some ties I think you are the most foolish person ever to walk the earth notch, but then I see Steve and his damn optimism."

Notch wasn't bothered in the least be Herobrine's speech, a very bad thing was happening right now. "I repeat, you fucked up, that new soul you brought here is going to tear this place to the ground if you aren't careful, I suggest you take a few steps back from him and let him figure out what he is exactly on his own, I know this type you brought it, this isn't some run of the mill challenger, he has darkness in him, and he could potentially be a guardian, you push him to far, none of us are going to have any thing left to protect."

Herobrine face turned to a look of surprise as he said "A guardian?"

Notch's face was getting red with anger as another face, one that had brown hair and eyes, with the classic Minecraft clothes; he had an uncanny resemblance to Herobrine, except for a few key differences. He was flanked by, at first glance appeared to be regular humans, and mostly they were. But Herobrine could smell the challengers that followed Steve through the room, a team with varying powers and strengths, and weaknesses that only each other knew.

"Normally Herobrine, I would take the opportunity to explore, but you have made a very grave error." Herobrine wasn't sure if he was going to cry or scream if he had to listen to another 'you're a moron speech'.

"I know why you bring them here, and frankly it was not a good idea to begin with."

Hero almost sighed with relief, not that he knew, not even Notch knew why Herobrine started making challengers, so Steve must be a bit more observant than first thought, maybe almost as smart as Herobrine himself.

"I wish that you would have chosen some other method, but we all have our own ways, with Notch's building competitions and my mining expeditions, we both have our own ways of finding one to succeed us, but your way is filled with bloodshed and pain." Steve

Notch stepped in between the two before Herobrine could talk again "Now as much as I would love to get into a philosophical argument, we need to resolve this situation by getting this 'Forge' as far away from anything that could point to Hero's involvement in any way, and distract him from the prospect of revenge, I know this is something you got yourself into but from an old legend I've been hearing floating around the end, I doubt we should et you handle this by yourself, you will only make things worse."

Herobrine scowled and said "If you are suggesting that he's stronger-"

"No no no, I'm saying he has a will to fight, and while he may not beat you in battle, he will gather a large number of followers, I can see it, he will not stop if you involve yourself further, convince him it was a bad dream, convince him that you are just as much a myth here as in his world, any thing to prevent a massive conflict that is doubtless going to start should he get any sign that you are even real here." He walked away from him for a few seconds, then stopped and said "This is a very serious matter Herobrine, I know you still like to think of this world as your own personal sand box to screw around with, but this could really cause irreversible damage if a war starts up, and no amount of intervention form us is going to prevent it if the spark lights the forest fire waiting to happen."

Steve stepped up to the metaphorical pitcher's mound and said "You said distract him from revenge, first off he doesn't have much to be vengeful about expect that he is now in a world that he probably only dreamed of actually coming too." He paused and stared hard at Notch and Herobrine. "And secondly, how do you propose we distract him from something that runs in the challenger's instinct to find and kill you Herobrine?"

He grinned coldly "The greatest distraction to male teenagers since the dawn of time."

"Video games?" Notch inquired. "I don't think we have any of those here."

Herobrine lost his smile and sighed "Okay the second most distracting thing to a teenager "

~Forge~

He growled in frustration for the first hours as the two assassins yelled at each other from across opposite ends of the room, they were both natural enemies to start, both assassins of rival guilds, and both had an interest in the same guy, not a romantic one, but one that involved an untimely demise and another that had some weird super natural thing about it Forge would rather not mess with. After a while, with hem yelling different things at each other after the first night, he yelled extremely loud and crazily, giving two wide eyed looks, even if one of them couldn't see.

He breathed a sigh of relief, only to have the two start up again. His eyes grew wide and, only having his left arm chained to the wall, turned around and proceeded to start punching the wall behind him in an attempt to escape the two screeching banshees.

One of the guards noticed, and nudged his friend. They both shared a quiet laugh because, even if Forge broke through the double thick cobble stone wall, there was a layer of obsidian all around the underground base.

"You think we should help him?" the shorter one asked.

Seriously thinking about it, the taller one shook his head. "Nah, besides I'm sure those two will clam down eventually, and then he might realize that he is locked in a room with two girls about his age."

The shorter guard snickered, and watched as Forge broke through the first cobble stone block, and with a bloody hand that had to have more than a few broken fingers, kept attacking the wall. There was something to say about that kind of determination, but his stupidity rose above that considering there was still a chain connecting him to an obsidian block above his head. Luckily no one but the guard's friend heard that comment earlier, as Tanya would try to kill him if June didn't get to him first, and Forge would get them when they finally came in to get him out.

~Beatrice~

She wasn't sure what to do now, despite being one of the most respected traders that came to rest here occasionally; the guards that lived here wouldn't let her even go in the direction of the prison area. "Sorry, but we are under orders that we are to keep all challengers and contactless mobs away form him, I'm sure you can se why."

Beatrice didn't notice it before, but she was in the sick room as of a few minutes ago. As she looked around though she could see signs of fighting, Challengers trying to get him as a powerful addition to their own group and mobs that didn't have a contractor were both fighting to get to the prison area? "Really despite being locked in there with two assassins, that is probably the safest place in the whole complex."

She glared at the guard and stalked off to find Swift, who was no doubt holed up in his tower somewhere, either brewing potions or making enchantments that defied all logic. He was the leader of the operation because he founded it, at first it was only a few traders that passed through, but as more and more came around, he and the other founders were basically declared leaders of what was now a sprawling town full of temporary residents that always came back.

"You know," said Death bringer as he struggled to keep up with her pace "That talking to Swift isn't going to change any thing, he is going to say the same thing he always does when a new challenger is rescued here 'We will wait until all founders arrive before decide ding who to partner him with and how he can best pay us back for saving him being a mind washed super weapon', at least I think he is going to say that." She had almost forgotten that he was there.

"If he sees knows how powerful he is he must know the dangerous of keeping him here with out a contractor, it will attract mobs form every corner of the compass, not to mention the civil war of challengers and mobs trying to get to him."

Death bringer countered with "Well, no one is stupid enough to kill another member here, and besides we can handle commander less hordes with out a single casualty with all the red stone surprises we have."

Beatrice wasn't so sure about that, through her travels she has seen extremely powerful mobs, most of which didn't exist in the game that she came to know in the real world. From red dragons to giants to some that seemed they came straight out of a mod pack like chocolate quest, if something wasn't done soon there would be trouble.

~Seth~

He already loved being an ender, it was so much more fun than being a human, plus, he got to keep his swords. He remembered somewhere that objects a human treasured in life, such as a trinket or clothing, or a personal weapon that a human had even named and filled with enchantments, was kept through that soul's journey as it lived and died as a mob, then to whatever happened after they completely lost themselves.

But he didn't care bout that now, along with being able to explore freely at night with little harassment from other mobs, he could teleport and that amused him to no end… for about five minutes. Then he passed out form teleporting too much.

Of course that was a while ago and now something else caught his attention. He wasn't sure what smell that was exactly… but he planned to find it.

Beatrice smiled and jumped in the air "Alright, a new challenger with out a contractor, if we can get to him first before another mob that is still like us, we can gain some humanity back, and as long as it's alive no matter how many times we die we wont progress any further into corruption."

Seth looked confused and asked "Is that why you mobs are so desperate to partner up with challengers? Why don't regular humans or challengers know?"

She grinned and said "Well first off we literally cant tell them, and any one who figures it out on their own can't tell any one else, its like some sort of silence spell, you can only talk about it with someone else who knows."

Seth frowned and said "I always thought mobs did that because it was their instinct." He said as he began teleporting at a respectable speed towards the smell.

Beatrice kept up with him easily, having much more experience teleporting than him, as she tried to answer him the words were snatched away by the teleports. But Seth got the general idea tat, yes it was part of their instinct, the part about basic immortality was just a bonus.

Seth couldn't wait for his first fight as an ender, with his swordsman ship, new height and teleporting powers; he would have a good time fighting with other swordsman much more skilled than him, and make up the difference by basically cheating.

~Jade~

She was bored, sitting in her tower, just hoping someone would come in looking for a potion, any potion, and she was bored out of her mind and needed something to do. But that didn't happen.

She sighed and thought about that cat girl. Maybe she would go find her, or go make sure her master had an accident so she would be free of him. As she considered it however, she heard the war horn being sounded.

She heard its deep brass notes three times, then a rest, and three more times. A scout had apparently found a challenger, and to form a war band just for it meant something big. That didn't concern her though; she was still human even if she, to some people looked like a witch. She instead, took a collection of battle potions like instant health for undead mobs, potions of harming, and a speed potion incase she ran into real trouble.

As she stepped outside, at least a dozen zombie foot soldiers surrounded her, and one said "Congratulations little girl, you have the honor of serving his highness in battle against the barbarian traders."

This was not going to end well. Raising her eyebrow in amusement, she said "And you think I care if you don't move out of my way, there isn't going to be anything left of you."

The zombie guard captain's grin grew very wide. "I was hoping that was the case."

He pulled a staff off his back, and quickly jabbed at Jade's chest, however, being the gymnast she was ended up in a place the zombie least expected.

He stared in awe at the girl standing on his staff and had time to say "Hw the hell…" before a splash potion of healing found its way to his face. Something to note about Jade's potions, none of the heal potions were less than tier six, he was obliterated as hit him, while the others around him were blown back. Jade however, being a human felt rejuvenated, and as she pulled out a speed potion she muttered. "And already another society deemed me a threat to their existence."

With that, she zoomed through the city at speeds that nearly equaled that of a horse, and she didn't stop until the potion ran out, when it did she was well over a thousand blocks away from the mountain that the city was inside.

"Well it was bound to happen eventually." She said to herself, and started walking off to the most well known trading post, which was the only one large enough to organize a war band for.

~Swift~

"I realized the issue of leaving him in there with one of our own that has no self control, and an assassin that has the sole goal of killing him, but if we divert any recourses in an attempt to make another cell, we could lose this internal battle we are having to make sure he gets a chance to pick his own, but we still need one last council member to arrive before doing a reading on him to see exactly how strong he is."

Beatrice was ready to explode, she realized the dangers involved in an unequal partner ship, but what was happening now was leaving them open to attack, that and Forge would not be keen to help them after locking him in a room with two girls who, at the moment wanted nothing more than to kill the other one.

"But sir" she practically growled through clenched teeth as her eyes turned into an ominous white. "If we don't do something now we could very well be wiped out in the event of an attack, which is very likely considering that June could detect the challenger from so far away, I don't really know the numbers here but considering how strong she is, there will be others that can detect him from miles, or kilometers for you Europeans."

In the room sat five figures, one was Beatrice, one was Swift, and the other three were, as far as Beatrice was concerned unimportant. "Well," one of them said and stood up. "If that is the case we must quickly find the closest one to his power without the reading, just remember if he is too much stronger than the mob and 'it' happens, it's on your own head."

Beatrice nodded and said "I am fully prepared to face the consequences." Inside she was far less ready fro them, but she calmed down and her eyes no longer glowed a dangerous white.

"I believe the safest option would be to try to pair him with June, but she might not match his strength… however if we try moving him out to find a suitable match it could get very dangerous very fast." Said swift. "My suggestion is with the safer bet, pair him with June and hope that he isn't too much stronger than her, you know what happens if he is." Everyone in the room was well enough informed of these kinds of things, and nodded. "Well then, let's get to it."

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**REVIEW YOU LASY PEOPLE! I CAN SEE THE VIEW CONTER GO UP WHEN YOU READ THIS I KNOW YOU ARE OUT THERE**


	10. 10: well, at least its not politics

**O, aperently last chapter i acedently called Cynthia beatrice when she was with seth, apologies for that, im sure no one noticed though as no one reviewed abotu it, but i had to say something becuase iw as sorley disapointed in myself for not catching it... wellp i hope you enjoy this chapter!**

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~Beatrice~

At first, it looked like things weren't too bad, just a few mobs and guards fist fighting for the most part, but no potions powers or weapons were being used. She grinned and said "From what death bringer was saying earlier, it sounded a lot worse." Speaking of death bringer, during the brief meeting between Beatrice and the four council members that were there, he went off to help Yahiko, Kuro, and Boo to help them hold off the 'worst' of the attack. Not even an attack really, there weren't any people fighting to kill, not yet any way.

Swift had a grim look on his face when he turned to Beatrice as they were running and said "Things were much worse than what death bringer said, if we don't hurry someone might kill one of our own, and the back lash of revenge will tear this place apart, everyone has a friend here in this place and eventually, that would tear the place apart if they all fought to avenge a friend, or they fought to avenge their captain's friend."

Beatrice's eyes turned turquoise as she turned away trying to hide it, it was a miracle that they hadn't noticed after all these slipups over the years she has made with them, obviously they don't pay nearly enough attention. "That definitely doesn't sound good."

Swift grinned and said "How delicately put bee."

"Please don't call me that."

"Why? It's just a little compliment with a sting isn't it?"

"You are really annoying."

"Not as annoying as bees though."

"I hope you're allergic."

He just laughed, and true to his name sped off faster than Beatrice and any of the others could keep up.

Beatrice gritted her teeth as she watched him run at a speed that, in the real world would have shamed the greatest of sprinters. "Damn horse whisperer." Swift took up a horse as his power, using the speed and strength to his advantage, wielding a hammer like it was a balloon.

She ran through the corridors between guards challengers and resident mobs that were either wresting with their bare hands, lobbing fireballs, or in a hesitant clash of weapons. There was no way they would make it to Forge first at this point, a strong, or particularly clever mob will break through the ranks, have a nice hand shake with Forge, and the fighting would stop before it got to intense. In theory any ways.

~June~

She watched, amazed actually as the guards fighting off the mobs, and challengers, while all of them failed to notice an absence in the cell that June knew was going to happen as soon as the heard the chains snap. Tanya obviously noticed too, but was too busy laughing at the complete obliviousness of the guards.

It was, apparently an intense fight by the sounds of it. Earlier, it was just yelling at the guards to let them in, then someone pushed someone, someone shoved someone else, and then punches, and it kept on escalating from there, all the way to high explosives being used thought out the hall way.

"Is all of this really just to protect Forge, they don't even know him."

Tanya's voiced sounded from the other end of the cell "No, its to protect the weaker ones form him, in a situation like this its likely the strongest one will get to him, but with out something to filter out the weaker ones they could be completely vaporized if a challenger with too much power tries to form a contract with them." She sighed and continued with "It's pretty sad that it actually happens pretty often, challengers often look more to the weaker ones to protect them, and end up making them spiral deeper into corruption."

"I thought we were supposed to hate each other cat."

"Oh, well one should respect others as skilled as them selves, even if we are enemies in the food chain that is life."

"You are weird."

June could here the smile on Tanya's voice as she said "I pride myself on weird."

June leaned against the rather uncomfortable stone wall, and listened to a new group arriving, and heard a familiar voice say "This place is going to hell, let's get the challenger and June and get the fuck out!" June smiled at the familiar voice; Kuro was always the instigator when it came to these kinds of things, even if Yahiko was the 'official' leader.

June relaxed, but only a bit, she still didn't have her weapons, the guards 'confiscated' them, but her friends were going to get her out. No dying and becoming even more corrupted than any of us, me Kuro Boo and Yahiko, and becoming a faceless monster that humans fought against for survival on a daily basis.

June could hear Tanya sigh in the corner "Too bad, I guess I get to die yet again, sometimes I wish that I could just spectator instead of coming back over Andover again like an avatar in some ridicules game."

June started with "Look, I can get them to let you go-" she was interrupted by an explosion, and the malfunction of the red stone network shutoff all the torch lights, turning on only red stone torches instead, of course June couldn't see that, but now no one else could see either.

"What, the fuck was that?" muttered one of the guards, as the fighting sputtered to a screeching halt.

The mobs seemed a lot less keen to fight to get to Forge now that something had seriously messed up. June listened intently, straining to hear anything to for the ordinary.

"Come on you two" whispered Yahiko to Boo and Kuro, "We don't have all of eternity to sit and wait to find out what's going on, let's get June and get to the surface, we will figure out everything there."

No one made a move to stop the trio as they pulled a lever, and opened the steel doors. Yahiko, not bothering to ask why there was a hole in the wall and Forge not in the cell , cut June's chain on her ankle to where only one link was left, that and the metal cuff around her ankle.

Kuro peeked her head into the cell, and noticing a certain absence immediately asked "Where's that challenger?"

Many of the mobs, hearing this felt really embarrassed that they just attacked the guards just to find out that in fact, he disappeared on them a while ago.

The hole in question was only one block tall and wide, obviously Forge crawled through the smallish opening and kept breaking blocks as he went, but instead of a straight path it turned at the obsidian, and continued to the left.

Boo was about to ask if they should follow him when a certain sound rang through the hall ways. It was a series of note blocks stuffed inside the walls, being triggered by red stone. This particular sequence meant only one thing.

Yahiko gripped his reverse katana and said to the others around him. "Prepare for battle, I don't care who was fighting who just now, we are under attack from an outside force, and being as disorganized as we were only minutes ago, you can be assured that whatever enemy is here is already inside."

Most were muttering to themselves, debating if it was true, but everyone in the trading post new and respected Yahiko as a leader. With a general confirmation of him being the filed commander for this particular group, he quickly decided that the area they were in now, the lowest area, really should be the base of operations, and from here send scouting parties of two and gather up more people, set up defensive perimeters, red stone traps, rafter ambushes from assassins in the larger rooms, any thing to slow down the potentially enemy force invading their base.

Most people would think this is a gross over reaction, but over reacting in a place like Minecraftia, where everything and their dog generally wanted to kill you and take your stuff, was much better than under reacting, especially when someone was right about the attack.

~Jade~

She hid in the shadows of a cave as night fell not too long before, the Calvary force of the war band barreled past her, it would only take them an hour to reach the out post form here, at least if it was the one Jade thought of when they mentioned it only an hour before. She went deeper into the cave, it would take all night for the whole war band to go past the cave, and the Calvary alone would probably tear the outpost apart if it was trying to decide what to do with the challenger, especially if this war band wasn't a gross overreaction.

As she thought about the situation more and more, she realized that things would get very complicated very fast, she induced not too long ago that Tanya would have been sent after the challenger to kill him, and the mobs would be challenging both her and the strength of the outpost for his control. If the humans and the mobs that worked with them reacted in time and sealed off sections of the base and laid down firing positions to decimate whatever tried to advance, and one of them got word to the human kingdoms, they wouldn't take kindly to an outpost being attacked, even if the outpost wasn't under the rule of either mobs or humans, humans reacted especially violently when organized groups of mobs targeted human groups specifically, even if those groups harbored heretic challengers and the, at least in most humans opinion, soulless mobs who, despite their appearances, would kill them in a moments notice.

Jade grinned and muttered "Oh, this is going to be exciting…" she gripped her fans, ready for combat as she stared out the cave at the passing caravan. It held siege weaponry equipment like catapults. Jade suspected they wouldn't be of much use; most trading posts were under ground and had many hold out areas with many weeks of food. If things went the way Jade thought they would, there would most certainly be a war.

~Seth~

Seth was sitting under a tree, waiting for the day to end. Being an ender, he couldn't travel in daylight any more. It wouldn't kill him, but it made him freak out, like some supernatural phobia of the sun.

Seth didn't like sleeping during the day; he was still used to his more human schedule. However, Cynthia has been sleeping since dawn, right up against him and the tree.

"Man, I am really going to feel tired in a few das if this keeps up." He sighed and watched the sun set, and was contemplating if he should wake Beatrice up or not. On one hand, it felt pretty nice to just sit therewith her sleeping on him, but on the other, his newest side of him was pulling him strongly to the setting sun. The direction the challenger was.

He quickly checked over his blades, and they looked as new as when he first made them, clean and without a scratch, apparently whatever tool you used most as a human, or that you happened to have when you died, fixes on death and, after that though, you keep that weapon for life, if it breaks sucks to be you. Luckily his tools were diamond. He could repair it if he was human, but for some reason the translation from human to mob stole the knowledge of how to use crafting tables, anvils, and the like. You would have to pay humans to do it for you, that's why even in the most mob oriented civilizations across the flat world, there is always at least, at the LEAST one human to make things, even though mobs could gather them they wouldn't do any thing with them but store them in dungeons. And that only brought attention form raiders.

Finally, as the sun set he woke her in a way that, needless to say, would shock them. Can you guess what he did? You have to guess before you read on.

He slowly leaned to her face, brushing away the hair covering it, and lowering her hoodie, and as he got next to her face opened his mouth to say, in the loudest voice possible "ICE CREAM!"

Now, most people would think that, despite the loud scream, ice cream would just make people go meh this early in the morning, however in Minecraftia "Holy shit where?!" in a flurry of teleports that lasted about ten seconds before Seth nearly died of laughter, ended with a very, very irritated looking Cynthia glaring at him through deep purple eyes, that at this moment, looked like they could melt through stone. "I am going to murder you!"

Seth laughed, and teleported as fast and chaotically as he could in the general direction of the challenger as Cynthia chased after him.

~Forge~

He didn't realize just how painful punching a stone tunnel out in Minecraft could be. He swore he would never do it again, as he finally emerged many, many rooms away from those psychos, who were currently discussing the risks of letting Tanya out, but obviously that was a stupid plan right at the start as she would charge down the small ventilation shaft style tunnel he used to go into a hall way parallel to the jail cells, luckily it was abandoned at the moment as he stepped out.

Carful not to make any noise, not even a whimper from the extreme pain of the broken hands he carried limply at his sides, he quickly walked around, getting a good luck at the room in the dim light. It must have been someone's bed room, there was a bed in the corner, a double long chest, a work bench, furnace, a few paintings on the walls that Forge didn't recognize from the game, and what looked disturbingly like a piano.

IF it was a less tense situation, he may have appreciated the fact that someone actually invented a piano in this new Minecraft, and gotten ideas about other things that could be invented somehow, but this was an emergency situation, as far as he was concerned the world was out to kill hi, or bind him in a supernatural contract.

Hr quickly kicked the lid of the chest open, and found a disorganized mess of items scattered inside of it. _Well, I guess that's what the inside of a chest would like any ways…_ He quickly scanned over a block of wood with a number 64 on it, a golden sword that must have been just for show, and quickly located a few loaves of bread. Those were gone in seconds. Like magic, his wounds began to heal. Not quite as fast as the Minecraft game would have you believe, probably about ten times slower. But at least they were healing.

He sighed in relief, and starter looking through the chests again as a small group sprinted past the door, luckily it was shut or they would have seen him all too easily and caught him again. He took another look in the chest, hoping for some iron ingots lose in there, or some diamonds, even a few pieces of cobble stone.

He sighed, and slowly turned to the dreaded golden sword. "Well, I get to have the absolute worst weapon ever… fuck." He lifted it up, and spotted a stack of snow and a single pumpkin. Ya, you all see where this is going don't you?

Normally, Forge was a pretty conservative player in Minecraft, despite his tendency to roam in the game; pumpkins were rare so the first patch he got was used entirely for seeds, especially if it was only one. But again, in this emergency situation, a snow golem may be able to help some. In this new Minecraftia, where mobs seemed to have a great deal of intelligence, and the fact that most looked human, this one would probably be able to help him a lot.

"IF this doesn't work," He whispered to himself quietly as the sound of a fight started somewhere in the underground trading post "I am going to fucking scream." He tapped the snow against the ground, and watched the number on the side of the cube he held drop by one, from 64 to 63, and the snow block there quickly grew to a square about three feet on each side. He heard some where that the blocks in Minecraft were supposed to be about a square meter each, but he still thought of them in terms of feet.

He quickly placed a second, then with the hand holding the pumpkin, gently set it on top, making a three block high snow man. Forge quickly stepped back and stared at it for a few seconds. Nothing happened.

He sighed and muttered "Maybe I did something wrong." He broke the middle snow block, grabbed the pumpkin out of the air and placed it on the single block high snow man, hoping for a different result. Nothing happened… again. He growled at the snow man, and felt a power surge through him. It only made him angrier. He reached with one hand to grab the pumpkin head off the snow man and figure something else out, but, as he touched it, he felt a shock like electricity, and a horrible weakness made him collapse. He watched, as the pumpkin shrank to a size that a regular head would be, and the snow seemed to grow upwards.

He definitely did something that time, but it didn't feel very good. There were probably very bad consequences for… whatever he just did, but he didn't know what they were yet. The snow soughed off the figure that appeared inside, it definitely wasn't a man, and was about a head shorter than forge. She wore what looked like a trench coat with tails that went almost all the way down to her feet, which were bare, it was so white that it would completely blend in with snow save for the black buttons on the front. On her back was a large black case that looked like it could hold a lot of stuff. She still had the pumpkin completely encasing her head though. She gave a shiver, and made some muffled noises as she held her hands out in front of her, stumbling and feeling around, one hand trying to find something to support her self on, the other trying to wrench the pumpkin off her head.

Forge watched, silently amused as she found a wall, and after feeling it very thoroughly for a few seconds, placed her other hand on the wall, and proceeded to smash her head against it, resulting in the pumpkin that was covering it. After wards though, she fell backwards, and the back case seemed like it was stopping her from getting back up, so Forge decided he could probably help.

She was still clearly dazed from being brought to life, and had no idea what was going on and shied away from forge just a bit, giving him an evil glare. Forge hesitated a second, but only to commit her face to his memory. She had piercing violet eyes, a color he had never seen before, and her hair was a startling white. Her skin was also very pale, but not a sickly pail, more like a princess. She had very fair features. Forge grinned slightly and reached down to help her up.

"Here, I'll pull you up, there is something bad going on right now, and I could use some assistance."

She relaxed slightly and reached out for his hand, and then she flinched, and sniffed the air. "Hold on a second-"As he grabbed her hand, a wind seemed to rush through the room, and suddenly snow was flying right into his eyes. He tried to let go of her hand and shield his eyes, but it was like he was glued. He quickly used his other hand to shield his face form, the now stinging snow. It lasted only a moment, but when he opened his eyes, he seemed to be in a castle, made completely from ice. He stared all around, and then noticed a golem, not a regular snow golem, but a golem made completely from ice, that seemed to have a womanly figure to it, with robes and a crown.

"Um, you can let go of my hand now." HE glanced down, and realized he was still holding the strange girls hand, but she wasn't on the ground any more like she was a minute ago.

"Right." Blushing slightly, he let her go and looked back to the literal ice queen. "And… you are?"

The sculpture didn't move. But the snow girl started saying something. "If that was on purpose, pairing me, then you are a complete moron."

He raised his eye brow at the white haired girl and said "Well I have only been in here for like, less than a week so I have no clue what is happening."

She sighed, and was about to continue berating the new guy, when something in the room spoke. "Ah, it has indeed been a while since a challenger has found their way to my door step, why don't you come in and make yourself comfortable, I'm sure that you will need something's explained, especially because of your rather unique situation."

Forge didn't hesitate; he walked right up the steps of ice, only barely slipping on the last one. The snow girl was a bit more hesitant despite this being her realm. She advanced slowly, giving the walls themselves dirty looks as she went past.

"Now, let me get a good look at you, I have to see the power ratio here." Forge looked around and still didn't see any one, and the Ice queen sculpture was unmoving. He heard a laugh that sounded like icicles tinkling against one another "Oh, that is just amazing, I have never seen a challenger do what you did, pairing with their own creation."

The snow girl spoke up a little "Well, it does give him a few things that most people wouldn't have."

"Hmm, that's right, perhaps I should explain." The walls reverberated with sound as it spoke, it sounded slightly feminine, but with an air that could be either male or female. "First off, if you don't know this, you split your own power in half when you used your strength, instead of powering her with Redstone to make a helpful minion, have instead created a partner that carriers half of your strength. You basically partnered with the only exact equal of you in existence, yourself." A slight pause, and then continuing with "This means a perfect union of power, a power that grows with each of you as a team, any trials you face, if you survive, both get the benefits from."

Forge was more than a bit confused "What benefits?"

"Oh come now, surely you have noticed your super human endurance and unnatural strength, the strength and endurance you gained in your first trail against the undead horde." Forge started and stared at the walls around him, how could they have seen him since he came here? "Oh yes, a leader must know all about the partner of their subordinate, now most snow challengers weren't as physically strong as you, I am sure that will influence your magical abilities, everything you do here does. Every action shapes your power and increases it, but what path will you take I wonder?"

"How exactly does it work? These trials?"

"Well young warrior, the trials you face increase physical skills, and shape your powers." Forge could almost here footsteps around the room as the voice continued. " The way it works is, the first trial you face increases whatever is required for it as it is happening, but like man gains near immunity to a germ over time, every trial there after only increases your strength or shapes your powers after it is done, and it has much less effect as time goes on…. However the more intense the trial, the greater the effect. Well, I am sure you want to be going, but before you do, two things must be said, one, since you pretty much made a contract with yourself, if you and your partner, both shake hands with a willing individual, you will get an actual partner, and be a member of two sects… that would indeed be interesting… Last thing before you go, your weapon of choice, based on your fighting style so far will be sent with you when you leave, and your magic will begin to take shape from this point forward based on your needs and choices you make, starting now."

This was unbelievable, amazing. He made to ask more questions, but the blinding snow attacked him again, and when eh opened his eyes he found himself back in the under ground room, but now that under ground rooms door had been blown away with a creeper explosion some time ago.

"Well, how about we test our new abilities on those guys who were trying to kill you?" said the snow golem with a grin, as she pulled off the black case, and took out a large quiver of arrows with the coolest cross bow he had ever seen. "This is my baby, it can rapid fire arrows, and shoot farther than any bow in Minecraftia," she grinned and left the black case on the ground as she stood up. "It takes a millennium to reload though."

Forge looked down at his own hands, and found they held between them, a pair of ice glaives, each about three feet in diameter, they were both attached to the chains on his wrists. The things that not minutes ago bound him, were now probably the most dangerous weapons he has ever held in his life, other than that shotgun he used to go hunting with.

The pair admired their won weapons, and each others for a few moments longer, but a group of mobs ran by, and doubled back when one spotted Forge and the snow girl.

They were dressed in a different color scheme than the guards. Forge only noticed it now, but the guards here had a uniform, and so did these guys, but they were different, clearly this was like a faction war in Minecraft.

"Who are these guys?" one of them asked. All of them seemed to be skeletons that wielded sword instead of bows, all of them were decked out in leather armor and sported iron swords instead of bows. "Well, they are human and therefore our enemy" another replied "We didn't bring any humans with us, and we were ordered to kill whatever was here and capture any challengers without partners, and I don't see any partner less challengers here."

Forge realized he may have made a big mistake "Oh shit." The group turned towards the pair, there must have been at least five of them just in this group. Forge, quickly threw his glaive, smashing through one of their skulls, and it kept going, digging itself into a block behind the now headless swordsman. He yanked it back, but an angle so that it would get on of the skeletons in the back as it came back. Bu they saw this coming, and ducked as it flew over them, and after that they rushed forward, while the snow girl aimed her cross bow, and unloaded.

They might have made it if she wasn't such a crack shot. "So," forge said, panting, that glaive was heavier than it looked. "I didn't catch your name; do you by chance have one?"

"Ariel, my name is Ariel." She looked to the bodies of the skeletons and shuddered, and started reloading her cross bow. It looked like it could hold ten bolts at once. "Cover me while I get this thing going again, I wasn't expecting to b dropped into the middle of a warzone to start my life out, and I am not happy right now."

Forge, instead of watching the door, sure that the dead bodies there would scare people off on their own, instead checked out his glaives. In the center they had a grip for swinging it at close quarters, and the chain was attached to a mechanism that was like a pulley, unwinding on the throw, and at the flick of a switch Forge could bring it back easily. It was relatively simple in concept but obviously this was going to be an unwieldy weapon at times, but maybe he could use them as a shield and shield combo later, every weapon had its down sides he supposed.

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**ohhhhhh whats agonna happen? O.o lol, well i did take into consideratin various epoples opinions on what he should be, and sorry if certain carachters arent being mentioned much but that is probably becuase at the moment, i find them uninteresting or they have nothing to do with the story at the moment, no meaning to be rude here but i can only include so many OC's at a time in my range of intrest when writing this stuff, so my apologies but be assured your person will play a greater part in the future, at least one chapter in this story will be dedicated to a person that isn't one of my OC's i have in here, i promise.**


	11. Chapter 11: a decision is made

**Sorry for infrequent updates, but i am trying to improve story quality. do you want faster updates or better story? either way it will be about the same length so hold your horses, or hold swift. Also, i dont own minecraft or any mod that may be mentioned during this story, i put this in ehre becuase i failed to do so other chapters.**

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~Sandra~

"Well, said the quieter of the duo that was trying to hack into another dimension, "I think we have succeeded, but we can't do it here."

She frowned and said "Why is that?"

George grinned and said "Well, I'm pretty sure you will want to still have a house by the time this is over right?" Sandra just frowned.

The quiet one that wouldn't tell Sandra his name stood up. "I think I need to call in a few favors someone owes me, we can't exactly go in there alone."

Sandra frowned "Where is he going?"

George grinned "I didn't think he was gonna do it."

Sandra glared. "But I still don't know what-"

George "It's a surprise."

~Forge~

Ariel the snow girl just finished reloading. But Forge was a bit more interested in the fact that his weapons were very different than just a minute ago. "What the fuck is this." He said, holding up an ice blue blade about six inches long.

Ariel looked up, and after realizing what happened to him, had a hard struggle not to just laugh uncontrollably. "I knew you were pretty ignorant of how this place works, but you seriously don't even know that much?" Forge just blankly stared and waited for an explanation. "Well fine then, a challenger's weapon, when the challenger is first 'born' is unstable, and subject to change, the slightest thought can change how the weapon looks and acts when you first have it, and it will probably keep changing for an hour or more."

Forge nodded and said "Okay, how do I get it to stop?"

She shrugged and said "Picture it as a weapon that would suit your fighting style, obviously you aren't a big fan of that little knife." She looked down at it, and laughed again. "It must really like you, it's already different again."

This time it was a staff. "Well, any way think of a weapon that would suit your fighting style, but once you actually try to change the weapon's form it stays in that form usually, and wont change back."

"Okay…. Well I'm going to ask you for a bit of advice, I need something that can utilize my strength I got from my first trial, but that will also be useful in a non combat situation."

She looked at him and asked "Really? You want me to pick your weapon?" He just stayed quiet and waited for her to give him a suggestion, he found that being quiet generally got people to do what you want here, unless they were really set on something else. She frowned and thought for a few long moments, and then said "How about an ice pick?"

"You mean like a plain old pick axe?"

She dead panned and asked "You really don't know what an ice pick is?"

"Of course I know what an ice pick is! Do you know what an ice pick is?"

She shook her head and explained "An ice pick is a tool used in arctic biomes usually, but it's still a really good weapon. It is the only tool other than silk touch pick that can pick up ice. It can also be used to break cobble stone and things, or cut down a tree.

On one side is a pick, on the other is a slightly smaller than normal axe blade, about the size of a tomahawk, it's also perfectly balanced so it's a good throwing tool."

Forge nodded. "Sounds pretty cool, but how do I make my weapon turn into that permanently?"

She grinned and pointed with her eyes at the weapon. It was already very much as she described. "Well, you have been here longer than me, in this area, longer than me Forge, who are our friends here?"

He looked suspiciously down the tunnel he crawled out of not so long ago. "Lets just try to find our way out of here, I don't like big crowds."

She shrugged and nodded once. "I can agree with that, but you better find an occupation once you get out of here, unless you plan on living like a hermit in the wild and gutting the animals you kill,"

That didn't sound very appealing. "Maybe a group won't be so bad…. But we still need out of here." And so they went.

~Zain~

An angel sat quietly in the newly captured entrance to the trading post. Said angel had black hair, even darker eyes, and toned skin, with the white clothing you all would associate with an angel. He also had two revolver pistols at his side, each round chamber filled with light. He just sent the thirty skeleton cavaliers to scout out where the enemy had been positioned. Now it was just him, jerry, and Janice still on the surface. Mostly because none of them burned in the sun.

"This is so boring." Muttered Jerry from his seat. "I'm going to join those skeletons on their scouting mission." Jerry was slime, like most slime he was very strong, nearly impossible to kill due to his splitting ability, he was also made completely out of slime, and he was a little farther down the line of total corruption than most in-betweens were. His weapon was a bat, a baseball bat to be precise, he was also wearing a hat that, at one time showed off his favorite team to the world, but it had long since faded away, and he couldn't remember enough of his human life to tell you what it was anyways.

Zain sighed, and knew that, despite being the greatest tactician the haven had to offer, nothing he said would sway him from not going in, so he said instead. "If you insist, but if you are doing that, make sure to include your findings, I need to get an accurate map if this is going to work, and if you meet any resistance along the way, turn back and tell me where so I can mark the spot, we need to-"

"Please, please be quiet, I already heard you lecture the Calvary squad, so let me be on my way."

Zain frowned and said "I would appreciate it if you don't kill too many, remember this isn't an annihilation mission, we just need to find that challenger, and whether he has a partner or not bring him to the king, after that we will gain a potentially very powerful follower."

Jerry stopped at the door and said "That isn't what you told the skeletons."

Zain shrugged and said "They would have attacked the challenger any ways; they aren't exactly the most loyal group of soldiers."

Jerry didn't say much else, he was eager to put his skills to the test once again.

Zain sighed, and waited with slight impatience for the six scout groups to return. He didn't have much to do, and he couldn't simply go under ground and fight the whole trading post by himself, his guns, when not exposed to the light only had twelve shots, and hey weren't as strong as one might have thought, that and it was hard to aim at people running as fast as they could at you with swords when you cant just fly upwards to avoid them.

Janice was sleeping rather peacefully, curled up on a bed in the corner of the room, mumbling about someone called matt. Janice could have been mistaken for Zain's twin sister if she didn't look ten years younger than him. She had black hair and the same kind of eyes he did, but her skin was a deathly pale. She was also a wither, so she wore basically nothing… except metal plates that covered the bare necessities. Well most of the time that was what she was wearing. Now though, she had a black shirt made from wool. It looked very comfortable.

Zain leaned back in his chair, and stared out the door for any sign of the skeletons coming back, but they probably wouldn't until nightfall

~Beatrice~

Beatrice heard the warning call, and already the fight inside was gone, now the disoriented residents of the trading post were scattering to find a place to hunker down as the forces, whoever they were, managed to take out our early warning scooters and already be inside the gates before someone managed to pull an alarm. This is very bad.

As she turned the corner, she spotted swift barreling down the hall way, with one hand on the hilt of his hammer. He didn't even make it half way through the hall way. A green figure slammed into him as swift passed in front of a hall way, and the green guy obviously didn't see him until he was right up in his face.

Both of them stared shocked at the other one, and after a very long second, the slime, she couldn't think of what else it could be, grabbed a baseball bat and tried to swing it at Swift's head. But swift was faster, and in the blink of an eye, the very heavy hammer went through the slime.

Swift breathed a sigh of relief "Well that was-"The slime was still very much alive but now there were two, both of them armed with green bats. As swift stood up, unaware, one came and took out his legs, the other jumped in the air, and kicked him in the chest, sending him into the stone ground with painful sounding thud.

Beatrice pulled out her sword, and ran forward with the three council member behind her, all readying weapons, but the slime quickly turned back and ran down the hall way.

Swift groaned and sat up, saying quietly "If someone sees that slime again, please cut him into very tiny pieces."

Beatrice stared down the hall way the slime ran though. There wasn't any sign that he was still there. "Maybe we should follow him."

Swift shook his head. "No, he is probably going to a large group of fighters; we wouldn't stand much of a chance if we followed." Groaning, he sat up and lifted his hammer "We need to find a place to hunker down, we might not make it across the base if there are more mobs like him running around… in a fight with him, even five to one we might have still lost someone."

Beatrice swore she heard metal on metal in the distance, the sound of a duel.

"Beatrice, go check on the challenger, and if he is still locked up let him out, we are in trouble here, and need all the help we can get, me and the council will go to the beacon room." The beacon room was a small iron pyramid with a beacon on top, fifty blocks below the surface, with a glass tunnel to the surface to let out light. The only effect it had was swiftness, but that wasn't the point. Beacons were humanities symbol of hope; they were some of the only structures that mobs couldn't destroy. A symbol of strength… and a call for help.

When a new beacon is fired into the air, it always meant one of two things; a new settlement, declaring allegiance to one of seven human kingdoms, or a neutral settlement under attack by mobs. Either way, elite soldiers are sent to the beacon as quickly as possible. Which was usually a little less than seven days before the closest kingdom arrived. If you were any farther than seven days travel by horse from a human kingdom, you were too far away for any of their outposts to see; therefore you were in the distant savage lands, where powerful, ancient mobs ruled.

But that is another story for a later time. Actually, this trading post in particular, was no more than a day's travel from the kingdom that claimed the name of Templers. They chose the name, based from the elite soldiers all too well known in the human world, and their particular elite group was a team of knights. They have just about every enchantment packed into their armor and weapons, that, and they had a peculiar ability, rendering them immune to the mobs 'magic'. A very useful skill that made them up to par with even the most powerful of challengers, and the strongest of mobs.

Two of the council members looked very worried. "If we put up that beacon, all challengers and mobs will be forced from here once soldiers arrive, no matter what side they are with."

Swift shrugged "Its not like they will kill us, they will give us, well, most of us at least, fair warning to leave. Besides, the only challengers here are Beatrice, myself, death bringer… what is his real name any ways?" Beatrice just shrugged. "Oh yeah, and that Forge person… actually that might present a problem… Beatrice, if you find him keep him from fighting the soldiers, he seems to lack self control."

Another person asking her to protect a complete stranger a very, annoying, complete stranger... Brilliant. She gave a mock salute and said "Sure, why not." The council members left towards the beacon room quickly. While those two that disagreed still argued with swift, there wasn't much they would be able to do to stop him. That beacon was going to light the night sky. She slowly tightened, and adjusted her grip on her sword, a dark aura surrounding it, that only she could see.

She almost smiled. Almost. "Hello old friend."

~Jade~

She avoided yet another pack of wolves, and tried, really tried to get to the trading post. She wasn't really sure where her allegiances were, but she would decide once she got there. It was going to be noon soon; it would definitely stop the advances of the caravan. Maybe she should just decide right now, and make sure that caravan stays a bit more delayed than it would have been before.

She sighed, and started forward again. She didn't get any sleep the night before, didn't have any swiftness potion left, and in Minecraftia, there was no such thing as caffeine.

Right now, walking through a large dessert part of the world, she wished that it was at least a slightly cloudy day. That might bring out some mobs, but not too many she couldn't handle. Probably. Right about now though, her heels, jeans, and full purple shirt were the worst things in the world right now. The only thing that protected her skin from being burnt to a crisp was a sun hat that she had the foresight to bring… err; steal from a merchant before she left the city. But she would definitely make it before nightfall; the real problem would be getting in. She saw the three elite soldiers the skeleton crew brought with them, one angel, one wither that looked very unimposing, and that slime. Slimes were very dangerous. To mêlée fighters that is. A nice potion to the face melts them right down. She hopes that she will get by with a baloney story about how she is part or a support crew.

She heard a footstep behind her. One wasted potion later, and one irritating squeal. A dead pig was poking out just behind a tree. Before she came here, when she played the game, she would have thought 'oh boy food!' but she wasn't going to cut up the pig for its meat, the thought alone made her vegetarian a long time ago.

"Oops, sorry little piggy." The piggy didn't exactly accept her apology.

She groaned, and was glad she had a loaf of bread close by, she was starving. Plus the desert heat was cooking it quite nicely. "Mmmm, toasted bread." She muttered as she took a bite. "Delicious." She continued on, leaving the dead pig behind. Also the caravan of ravenous zombies.

~Kuro~

She leaned on her spear, near the doorway of the only hall way that would lead to the outside. Yahiko sat cross legged on the floor. After some debate she was reassigned to guard him, other thank Yahiko no one in the base could trump her fighting skills. At least none of their allies.

Yahiko was still mumbling orders to group leaders he assigned before. He was offered up a map, but said he had the complex memorized. Kuro sighed and leaned against the spear just a bit more. Her job was extremely boring, but essential. Making sure that no one that wasn't receiving orders to disturb him, so he could figure out the situation.

Boo the shadow, was acting as the medical officer, organizing any one who had healing skills, both potion brewing form Minecraft and 'real world' doctoring skills, like stitching up a wound, and bandaging. Some wounds couldn't be healed with a splash of water with a ghast tear and a pat on the back.

At the moment, the prison 'wing' was empty, save for herself, Yahiko, and a pair of very, very bored prisoners, both of them she considered dangerous, and extremely annoying. They went past screaming about a half hour ago, and onto something much worse. Civilized conversation. The horror.

Right now it was something about the best way to assassinate some one. She wasn't sure which was on what stand point, but both were very adamant in their respective self governing laws as an assassin. One said the best way was to not let any one ever know you were there, just that someone died mysteriously in the night, better yet, that he went on an expedition and never came back. The wilderness can be a dangerous place. The other, argued that if there was no one left alive to ask questions about it, there was even less evidence. Just an empty building.

"Why don't you two just make out or something? It would be quieter."

They either didn't hear her, or ignored her, and she got an irritated huff from Yahiko as he further considered his options. The strategist in question wished desperately for an ipod, but those things were rare here. Not unheard of, but rare.

She stared down the long hall way, and wished desperately for something anything to happen to relieve the boredom. Usually, you should be careful what you wish for. What you wish for is almost never what happens here, everyone always seemed to have the worst of luck.

She closed her eyes and tried to dream or her old life, the one that she couldn't quite remember. The one that no one could help her recall. Sometimes, she got this feeling that, maybe if she continued down the path of corruption, she would find something along that road. But a much louder voice said that was a stupid idea.

One way or another, she would find out what happened at the end of the road. But for now, she would sit, or stand, in that boring hallway, and grab a snack once the squads came back.

~Death bringer~

He was leading a preliminary attack force to test the enemies' capabilities, so far they were utterly disappointing. He took a group of ten guards with him, as he lit the way through he darkened passage ways with his fiery blade. The only thing to challenge him so far, was how long he could keep his sword lit. Either they are trying to starve us out, or we seriously outnumber them.

He looked down yet another seemingly endless passage way. "Let's go back; I think we should give the general our findings."

"But, we haven't really fought anything yet, and he isn't a general he doesn't even have a rank."

"Exactly, this means that we either attack now before we run out of food, or attack before reinforcements arrive, and about the ranking, who gives a shit."

The guard shook his head, he was quite a bit older than death bringer, but being a challenger that put death bringer at a higher standing than him "Sounds like a plan, but what if they have too many to get past?"

"What if they don't?"

After a long moment, the bearded guard nodded. "Alright, but if we die I'm blaming you… and you get to go first. "He said with a slightly wicked grin."

~Forge~

The halls were eerily quiet. Of course there was an occasional shout and someone fighting some one else, but still. It was way, way to quiet. "This is usually how a horror movie starts." He muttered as he gripped the ice pick. After saying that, he considered that he was the slightly insane person with the axe.

Ariel kept looking around at the dark. "I don't like it either, but at least in horror movies, the cute girl and the unsuspecting kid lives right?"

Forge laughed a little and said "Then I'm kind of screwed aren't I?" The red stone torches didn't give off nearly enough light. In fact he was pretty sure that idiots in the 'game' of mine craft that didn't know this thought red stone torches would be cool, and lighting up their whole house with it, after running inside the next night to avoid monsters, find they are trapped inside with a few.

"I have a question; can mobs spawn in this place now that the lights are off?"

She gripped her cross bow a little tighter. "I really hope not, I've never heard of mobs actually 'spawning' somewhere with a lot of people, but it could happen. Usually thought it is form a mob spawned in a cave or something. Its one of the only ways I have heard of for mobs to come back, so we might be safe here unless they have a dungeon room set up here."

"Well, we wont be really ever safe here, but we might be a little safer if there isn't a dungeon room, even if there is one I'm sure our luck wont be bad enough to find it, it would be on the bottom level and we are going up." He paused and looked around. "Not really sure exactly how though…. Maybe there is an elevator" he joked, and started looking for stairs.

~Some random guard~

He sttared as a light flew up, a solid pillar of it in the distance. He quickly nudged his friend and said "That looks like an emergency, take the train through the nether route and inform the commander." Since the nether was eight times smaller, all travel in the nether went eight times quicker if you were going to an over world location.

"Alright, but when I get back in an hour you better have a nice hot steak, I hate going through that place."

~Zain~

Zain stared at the beacon. "So they called for help… yet another thing to complicate the situation, brilliant." By the time informants arrived from even the closest kingdom, the main caravan force would be here, which would arrive a little before dawn to set up a camp down below before sun rise for the zombies and skeletons, while the rest watched over head, all the rest that didn't burn in the sun at least.

~Dante~

The commander of a certain mercenary force named Atlas, sat back in his chair, right after issuing a few body guard contracts. They handled just about everything to all out military engagements, assassinations, sabotage, of physical objects bank accounts and data corruption. His company handled just about everything, and at the same time was known to very few. The only members out side the agency aware of more than just its name were informants, and very skilled hackers.

"Sir, an incoming video call from a contact of yours."

"Da Candice, who is the caller." He had a light Russian accent, but was wearing an American business suit at the moment, that threatened to tear apart if he flexed too much. Maybe he should lose half a centimeter of muscle; he would be a smaller target then.

"The name is spelled strangely, but I think his contact name is section 8."

S3kshun8… a name taken from a briefly popular game, form a character in it who was a '1337' or eLEET hacker.

The Russian grinned. "Put my comrade on."

The wall, that was once a nice tan color shimmered as it was reveled as

TV. The only thing on the video was a large number 8 in bright red with a white background. "Hello number eight, you have a business contract for me finally no? I hate being in debited to you after your assistance with my last excursion."

"Actually yes, IF you take this I may owe you a great deal depending on the difficulty of this." He paused and continued. "A colleague of mine is missing her brother, and she claimed he was 'inside' a soft ware program. I quickly found this to be false, but instead, as hard as this is to believe, a complete alternate dimension, which I calculate the surface area of to be eight times larger than earth. It also appears to be closely linked with three other dimensions that are not our own."

The Russian was silent for a moment. "I know that you are not lying, you are not one to make up wild tales without proof, but what exactly are you saying here? You wish me to risk the lives of soldiers in a world we cannot reach?"

"On the contrary, in theory it should be perfectly safe for trained mercenaries with modern weapons, and a stream of essential medical supplies and food. I have found that there are many individuals from earth that have found themselves trapped on this planet, with out any food or tools for survival initially, and for the most part they survived. For a team of mercenaries with modern technology vs., what I can only describe as an undead horde with barley anything to their name should be a cake walk."

The Russian's bro furrowed in concentration. "I do owe you a large deal, but this is still very risky, perhaps you can add some extra incentive for the trip to this world."

The voice on the other end of the line laughed. "Think of this Dante, under the ground are vast amounts of iron, gold, diamonds, and many precious metals. Despite this world's dangers it is a place of great wealth for those who are successful. After rescuing my colleague's brother, you may keep the device with witch we will travel to the world; it may be dangerous but sending in a team willing to mine the materials will add much wealth, allowing you to supply your soldiers with much greater technology."

The Russian nodded to himself. "Yes, but we will need more information on the planet, however, our trip to it, is assured."

"Well Dante, I plan on bringing the device to an open location, the device may very well have catastrophic effects on object ear at the start of its creation… we will finalize the details later, but for now my friend, I thank you. I will call again once the device is moved to a suitable location."

With that, the call ended. Dante grabbed a laptop, as he had several, and began organizing teams of his best men. To explore a whole world for one man, there would need to be an army, but the rewards after wards would be vast.

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**Okay, R&R, F&F, and keep in mind that at a later date (probably fall break) i will re post this story and update chapters to be less full of errors. think of this story as the rough draft.**

**man slow story eh? chapter 11 and still in the first 'real' conflict. well at least im descriptive and showing you what is happening to other people. usually. Also, when i say a character will have a chapter dedicated to it, i mean each character, OC's i mean, that i find interesting will have a chapter mostly dedicated to them at some point in the story.**


	12. 12: the eyes of the world all turn

**Short chapter! sorry, and to be clear here, if i haven't mentioned this before, just because your OC isn't on Forge'sside doesn't make it evil or bad, remember in a world like this, everything is in many shades of gray, but never black and white.**

* * *

~Sandra~

"No, absolutely not."

"Oh come on what's the problem? It will get him out won't it?"

"But mercs? That seems a bit over the top."

S3cshun sighed. "Okay but think about it, if we could just go in there and get him out with a couple guns and a few extra clips of ammo, wouldn't your brother be able to get out without even the slightest hitch? He's like a fucking MacGyver!" To top it off, the years of combat classes and his obvious strategic potential, gave him a good start in his 'life' there. "Look, there is probably no way a normal person would survive."

She narrowed her eyes. "And what exactly does that mean?"

Careful 8 you are on a minefield here. "Well, if you were watching him fight, he was like a super human, he should have collapsed after thirty minutes of sprinting down the dessert, a 'normal' human wouldn't have been able to run for eight miles of dessert, navigate a booby trapped pyramid, and to top it off, toss those things chasing him off it like they were rag dolls! I am almost positive that the way he went through did something to him, and he was likely dragged in by a force inside it that gave him this strength, and we are basically breaking into this dimension, so I doubt we will get the same courtesy."

Sandra sighed in defeat, as George started to take apart the equipment they had stores up. "Okay, let's take a trip to the dessert."

~Forge~

"So what's your real name Forge?" the snow girl asked as they explored another section of the complex that seemed to have no way out.

"I don't think my real name matters all that much right now." He glanced down at his weapon; just to be sure that it was still the same. It was. "Besides, I sort of… um…" He didn't remember. He froze mid stride. "Mother fucker!"

Ariel got a pitied look and asked. "Don't remember?"

"This doesn't make sense! I am forgetting everything from before here… I can barely remember my families' faces."

She nodded sadly. "That stuff happens here, for some sooner than others. It is usually why people either stop trying to get out, because why go to a place you don't remember? Or better yet, try even harder to go do whatever they had there minds set on before really figuring things out, like defeating Herobrine, thinking he might have been telling the truth about begin able to leave. "She glanced at him knowingly. "You really think the bane of humanity would be telling the truth about killing him gets you out? I am sorry, but… you are probably stuck here forever."

"Way to put it bluntly chief." He muttered and leaned against a wall.

"Well I have another question."

"Fire away."

Ariel took a breath and asked "Are you planning on taking more than one partnership?" she asked quietly.

He nodded. "I have been thinking about it ever since that ice queen said it was possible, and I already have two races picked out."

She looked disappointed for a second, but recovered and asked "Which ones?"

He shrugged "You will figure it out once we find a friendly one of one of the two."

For a while the pair walked in silence. They kept looking around for a while, but couldn't quite seem to find any stairs, or elevators.

"Fuck it I'm tired of looking for a exit lets just our own."

He turned to the wall, and started smashing a one by two tunnel stair case. "Well, Ariel said. Readying her cross bow. "We should hurry; I have a feeling this place is going to get really messed up once night falls."

She glanced at him with a raised eyebrow and continued with "Also, you should really watch your language."

~Beatrice~

The sword was glowing black, which meant a very familiar soul was close by, or at least coming towards her. But this thing could detect her for miles, so she could still be pretty far away. Then for the moment, she didn't matter. Beatrice put the sword away; it was absorbing what little light there was around the area. Already five red stone torches were dead because of it.

"Hello!" she called out, echoing through the hall ways. "Is Forge around here somewhere?" The only thing that answered back was herself. "Brilliant." She muttered "Guess I have to look for him the old fashioned way."

She pulled her sword off her back, and placed it against the ground, business end safely embedded in the cobble stone. She stared at the black gem at the hilt, and recalled everything she knew about Forge. His odd eye color, tendency to curse a lot, and everything else. After a moment, a black ball of energy left the hilt, and started moving, a thin trail that only she could see. She followed it, and briefly wondered what time it was. It had to be close to dark by now. Maybe.

~Zain~

The angel stared out at the setting sun. soon it would be dark, and the knights would arrive soon. But his army would get here sooner. If they managed to recruit the challenger, it would be well worth any casualties they suffered. Challengers were mostly free lance groups that flip flopped back and forth between the humans and the mobs, never able to decide witch one they really belonged to. On one hand, there closest companions were mobs themselves, on the other, they were still human.

Zain glanced at his own companion now, the girl was still sleeping soundly. She probably wouldn't wake up until the moon rose. Even as he thought that, she turned over, facing the door, and the sun light got in her eyes for a second. She squinted, and glared at the sun like it personally offended her by waking her up.

"And sleeping beauty arises from her slumber" Zain yelled raising his arms in the air, and saying it in an overly medieval sounding voice.

All he got for his trouble was a pillow finding itself rather attached to his face. "Shut up." She muttered. She really wanted to go back to sleep but she was already awake now, so why bother? "okay, what's going on?"

Zain shook his head. "Bad things, someone activated a hidden beacon, and that will attract a lot of powerful human attention, Once the rest of the caravan arrives I am going to have to work like hell to make sure their elites don't over run us."

Janice nodded and said. "Ya, that makes snese… but just one thing."

Zain raised an eyebrow and nodded for her to continue. "There is still the threat inside the trading post, and I am not just talking about the regulars in there like the guards and mobs." She took a breath and said "The challengers in there, especially the one we want to recruit, are the most dangerous things here, If decide to fight us, not only will the mission be a failure, but they will completely level the compound."

Zain grinned. "I thought of that, and don't worry, we have a dozen ways to get our soldiers out, Jerry is practically immortal, and I can just fly us both out, I have considered these things, but I doubt the challenger would fight us when we are his best chance at taking out Herobrine." Janice nodded. Herobrine only really controlled the corrupted mobs, and even then he couldn't control any of the passive animals, any thing friendly to humans, and the neutrals like the ender men and zombie pig men were his biggest opposition, actively working to lessen his control over the others. That was why they were the only fully corrupted mobs allowed in Haven.

But some uncorrupted mobs, and even humans believed that Herobrine was… well, a hero. They may have been right, nothing was really black an white here. Zain himself was an angel to protect humanity, yet he was a tactician for the mobs. Haven wasn't ever in history at war with the humans, but if word got out that they had attacked this trading post, there could be serious trouble. Of course, the skeletons he sent in as scouters, probably wouldn't be able to kill a single person in there, they had lived through the years, or months for a few of them, in Minecraftia with unbelievable skills and talents for different aspects of the world. He was sure that there were more than a few red stone traps, and a number of TNT explosives set in strategic places to blow up and collapse the tunnel.

That was another weird thing about the world, explosives like TNT didn't break all the blocks, just seventy percent. The rest would have 'real' physics affect them, and gravity would take hold. It was a strange mix of the physics from the game the humans played, and from the real world, like the fact that big jungle trees, would fall like normal ones if you cut two in a row out of it, while the smaller ones just hovered in midair.

At that moment, Jerry chose to come barreling crashing into the room, with out knocking. Or opening the door at all, it was lying on the ground with the green man on top of it. Some times, Zain thought he was mentally ill. Or just crazy.

After lying on the ground in pain for a few minutes, with Janice and Zain just staring at him. He finally caught some air and said "Those guys are tougher than they look, the first group I ran into had two challengers in it, and I could sense a third one not too far off."

Zain just said "Please add where you explored to the map." He could handle a challenger or two. One man armies they were, but more often then not they lacked tactical skill. Three might be a problem though if they decided to fight him, he was hoping to recruit as many as he could, this may not have been the best way to do it, but the king insisted. The king was a dumbass.

Jerry shrugged, and scribbled down the path he took, adding o the map. "I am pretty sure not half of your skeleton crew is coming back Janice."

She grew wide eyed. "Why what happened?"

"Well, I found one group that had crushed skulls and arrows all in them, another that fell for a crusher trap in the hallway, and I saw one trying to run back to the entrance, he was alone, and I didn't see him on my way back."

Jaice was nearly shaking. "This is not okay Zain!" she started pacing back and forth, absently touching the black dagger at her side. "We are in a bad place right now, and if any one figures it out they can wipe us out before the army gets here."

Zain nodded and said. "We will make a stand in the primary entrance; I have twelve rounds in these things." He said holding his pistols. "And that will be more than enough to scare away the most determined of fighting squads in there, the problem is how I cant reload at night."

Jerry grinned and said "Then you better shoot to kill, I can hold them off easily enough." He put his baseball bat on his shoulder. "I think we should get to it, and some of the skeleton crew may get back to help us."

The three quickly went out side to the tunnel that went deep down into the trading post. When they stepped down the final set of stairs leading into the actual base, there were twelve blocks of space in-between the first entrance way, and the place where the trio now stood.

Jerry got a smile and said, "You know, it was once said one man with a rifle can hold a canyon against a dozen with pistols."

"Well we don't have a rifle, only pistols, and this is not exactly a canyon."

Janice looked down he hall and said. "I think we should fortify it, we need two blocks of stone, or any thing else, and two slabs of cobble stone."

They quickly set to work building a directional fort. They knew how useless it was, people could just mine their way past them, but they couldn't think of any thing else to at the least, slow them down until the caravan arrived.

"You know, this was a terrible recruiting plan."

~Jade~

The witch could see the beacon shoot into the air. She sadly shook her head even as she continues towards it. "And even more blood will be spilled."

She went faster, it was getting dark now. She wasn't even sure why she was going through this trouble to help out an immortal assassin. But she was knee deep in it now, so stopping now wouldn't make it any easier. Besides, she would reach it before midnight at this rate, as long as the caravan of soldiers didn't send a wolf or some fast one after her at least.

She continued to question her skill in deciding on things for her to do that wouldn't get her killed even as she sped up, running again towards the beacon. She swore that she could hear a shriek of a ghast in the distance.

~Kuro~

A while ago, the pair in the prison, she wasn't sure why june was in there still any way, went quiet. maybe they fell asleep or something. As she stared down the darkened hall way, she saw a bobbing, flaming sword moving towards her. She almost panicked, but in the erratic light it was making, caught a flash of a familiar black hoodie and scarred face.

She sighed with relief and said as he got closer. "I was afraid they had a had a blaze with them or something."

Death bringer shook his head, and gasped for breath, he ran the whole way here, after all every second counted. Once he did get some wind back he said "No, they barely have anything, I need to talk to Yahiko, we need an attack force organized."

She raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Attack? I thought we were playing defense here."

"From what we fought out there, the enemies either barely have anything, or they are just going to wait us out until we starve to death, so let me in I have to talk to The resident swords man."

Kuro hesitated a second, then shrugged and let him through. She looked back down the hall, and saw a small group of fighters in the dimly lit hallway. They must have been death bringer's group.

She heard muffled conversation in the room Yahiko was meditating in, she caught a few words, like mining, danger, and the phrase 'time is of the essence', before one of them, presumably death bringer's second in command for the squad spoke up.

"Um, you seem to be missing some prisoners."

Kuro shoo her head in disbelief and walked over the the cell, saying "No, there is no way in hell." One quick inspection later. "Holy crap."

She quickly ran back into the room, interrupting a very heated discussion about what to do. "June and that assassin are gone."

Yahiko just sighed and sat up. "Well, I suppose I don't need the protection any way, go find June and make sure she doesn't do something stupid, me and death bringer are going to get shadows and his team ready for combat."

Kuro hesitated a second before leaving the room, obviously they had something planned. She quickly went into the cell, and went into the hole, it was her best guess of where she went any way, and who knows if she would actually find her in this place.

~June~

After some time during the conversation she had with Tanya, the cat girl in question went rather quiet, and all June heard was a rustling of chains, a click, and shackles hitting the floor.

"Look, maybe you aren't really so bad, I mean you're an assassin. So your pretty cool already, so as a final act of helpfulness, I'm unlocking your chains."

June just nodded, and wondered why The cat would help her. Aren't they supposed to hate each other?

After a few long minutes, the shackle came undone with a satisfying click. "There, now since we are both after the challenger, but for different reasons, after this we will be enemies… let the best assassin win."

With that, June only heard light foot steps going out of the room, and a few seconds later a stampede of people. If she was going to get out, she had to do it now or never, and she thought she remembered the challenger breaking a tunnel through the wall with his bare hands, so she would start by finding that before they figured out she was going. This time for good, this place attracted too much trouble, and who knows. Maybe, she and the assassin cat could become friends after all this is over, once the one controlling her is killed.

* * *

**Yeah... this chapter could have been better, sorry, just not terribly interested in writing this story at the moment.**


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